Painkillers leading to heroin addictions

MILWAUKEE -- The US Drug Enforcement Administration announced stricter rules for painkiller prescriptions calling them highly abused and addictive. Beginning in October the DEA and FDA will re-categorize the narcotic painkillers making them less accessible. At the same time heroin rates are rising in response to the addiction to painkillers.


Linda Lenz and Jabob Jansen were both touched by heroin.


Lenz says, \"My son decided to try it again and he overdosed and died.\"


Jansen says, \"When I worked at a hedge fund I moved to prescription pills, it was a quick slide down from there, then I moved to heroin. It was a move out of desperation.


The US Department of Health and Human Services reports an alarming growth in heroin use. Lenz and Jansen say it's thanks to opiate prescription drugs like Oxycontin which comes from the same plant as heroin and creates the same effect. They say most people start with the painkillers but they're expensive, and when they can't get refills, they turn to heroin.


Most start abusing in their early 20's but they've been finding more and more high school students are abusing. Lenz is trying to create awareness with Stop Heroin Now, and Jansen, now recovered started My Recovery Project LLC.


 


 

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