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Heroin use could be making a comeback
John Coyne,
Huffington Post
(6/1/16)
he findings in Odyssey House’s
latest annual report may be an
early warning of changes in
Australia’s drug problem. like the
canaries in the coalmines of yore.
Defying logic, heroin use and abuse in
Australia may be making a comeback.
Since 1979, Odyssey House has been
one of Australia’s leading drug
treatment providers and are well
positioned and qualified to make early
calls on changes in drug-use patterns.
For over 10 years, Australia’s national
drug strategies have achieved
unprecedented success in suppressing
the demand and supply of heroin in our
communities.
In the early 2000s, pop culture
seemingly delivered a final death blow
to heroin-chic. And so heroin was
increasingly perceived as a junkie’s
drug by Generation X.
In Australia’s popular culture, what
celebrities do and what happens in the
UK and US are important. And if this
is true for Gen Y Australians, then
increased heroin use shouldn’t be a
surprise.
The US Government’s Centre for
Disease Control and Prevention
reported in 2015 that heroin use has
increased across the US among men
and women, most age groups, and all
income levels. Alarmingly, the number
of heroin-related overdose deaths in the
US has quadrupled in the past 10 years.
In short, heroin is now very popular in
the US, a trend that should sound alarm
bells for Australia’s drug policy
makers.
Since the early 1970s, heroin use and
overdose among US celebrities has
been common. Sifting fact from fiction
regarding rumoured celebrity heroin
use isn’t easy. But the heroin overdose
deaths of celebrities, such as Peaches
Geldof and actor Philip Seymour
Hoffman in 2014 are illustrative of the
drug’s increasing popularity and inter-
generational attractiveness.
Bureaucrats and politicians are
generally the last to realise that a
change in the Australian drug market
has occurred. It is civil society
organisations like Odyssey House that
see the changes first and offer early
warning. It is the police, ambulance,
T