There is a Congressional Hearing going on now discussing this problem of users. They are pointing out that the Heroin usage is at an exploding level now. A lot of this is because the Cartel's have become very smart using the abuse of prescription drug pain medication to move them to meth, heroin, etc. when their pain prescriptions run out. It was pointed out by the DEA that 86% of Heroin addicts were at one time prescription drug abusers. Of course other drug abusers were/are and started with other forms of drugs, (e.g.meth to crack, crack to heroin, pot as gateways for the broad sprectum of drug users.) It is my understanding that Marion County leads the state in meth houses. Because we are an aged community we are fortunate that users are probably not as many as others. But it is the foundation for crimes and as the population gets younger we should not be surprised to see more drug related crimes.
