And no one cared about the drug problems in the suburbs until the soccer moms were getting high in the minivan – PB/TK
Prescriptions for painkillers brought about the explosion in heroin use in America’s suburbs- Harrison Jacobs Mar. 11, 2017
Andi Peterson never thought twice about taking Percocet. After all, the powerful painkiller had been prescribed by a doctor.
“I didn’t think what I was doing was that wrong. It felt more like a have-fun-once-in-a-while thing. It was not going to lead to this crazy addiction,” she told Business Insider.
The first time Peterson tried Percocet she was 16. The last time she used any substance was when she was 23, she said. She was finally free from the addiction that had spiraled from painkillers to heroin and cost her custody of her son, tens of thousands of dollars, and a year in prison.
Peterson is the face of what America’s drug epidemic looks like today. She is young, white, and middle-class, and she lives not in a city but in a suburb. She has been part of an epidemic ripping through towns and cities that’s left a trail of broken families and struggling addicts in recovery — and many others not as lucky as Peterson.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that the crisis costs the US $78.5 billion a year and strains state and local governments and the healthcare system. In December, the CDC also reported that 52,404 people died from drug overdoses in 2015. Those overdoses have fallen hard on places like Weber County, Utah, where Peterson grew up. Weber County’s drug-overdose death rate is more than five times what it was a decade ago, and far above the national average.
Continue to businessinsider.com article: http://www.businessinsider.com/heroin-drug-overdoses-prescription-painkillers-opioids-suburbs-2017-3
