The majority of people think that illegal drug users are losers, bums, thieves, weak, etc, etc, etc. There are many reasons why people us drugs. According to statistics there are 18,000 over dose deaths in this country due to illegal drug use in this country every year. Approximately 54,000 includes deaths from drug related illnesses, some include aids, hepatitis, TB. Approximately 500,000 emergency room visits every year due to drug overdoses (alcohol w/drugs, cocaine, heroine and morphine and suicide. There are approximately 350,000 people in this country that have drug addictions.
There are addictions that a lot of people do not consider addictions due to the fact that they are legal. Prescription drug use is a very real and common problem. There are more people in this country who are addicted to prescription drugs than there are people addicted to illegal drugs. Tens to be the least reported drug problem and does not get the attention that it needs and deserves and typically happens to people who do not have a history of other types of drug abuse. As a prescription drug user you become addicted unknowingly. You have a legitimate reason to take these pills (such as chronic pain) however over time YOU WILL starting increasing the dosage because you feel better (whether it be physical or emotionally). Now the cycle begins-you need to take more to get the desired effect and soon become addicted (just like an illegal drug user). When your doctor stops giving these to you, you WILL start doctor shopping until you have a steady supply. Prescription drug overdose is the second highest cause of accidental deaths in the U.S. More people abuse prescription drugs (behind car deaths) and more people abuse prescriptions than heroine, ecstasy and cocaine combined.
Yes alcohol IS a drug. Approximately 82,000 people die each year due to alcohol. 50 percent due to Fatal accidents and some to alcohol related illnesses. Children are 4x more likely to abuse alcohol if their parents do. Alcohol is the most widely used and abused psychoactive drug in the world. Alcohol and drugs is the leading cause of deaths in teenagers. Violent behaviors attributed to alcohol use are roughly 49 percent of murders, 52 percent of rapes, 21 percent of suicides and 60 percent of child abuse.
How many times have you tried to quit cigarettes (500,000) deaths per year. How about coffee addictions? If you don’t get enough you get a headache. The point I am trying to make is that an addiction is an addiction. So if you fit any of the criteria think twice before you judge.
I work in a homeless shelter and there has been drug related deaths and it is a shame and a waste of human life. I would like to tell you about a young women who died from a over dose of drugs. Although I have seen death, this one hit me harder than others.
She had a hard life from the get go. She suffered abuse (physical, sexual and emotional). She lived in poverty due to drug use by a parent. Her mother died when she was fifteen and her father died this year. She was a wonderful, loving, and needy young lady. She needed love and acceptance that she had not received in her growing years. The only person she had in her life was her brother who was also a drug abuser who is now clean. She sought love and acceptance from men who used her and kept her there by taking advantage of her addictions by supplying her with drugs. Two weeks ago she died from an overdose. She was twenty-five years old with a fifteen-year-old heroine and crack addiction. She was the type of girl that I wanted to take away from all this so she could have a real chance at life. For herself and the two young children she left behind. She WAS NOT a statistic as the category that she has been put in by the so-called professionals. She was a human being who was lost.
