How Does Heroin Impact Society

 Heroin, a derivative of opium, was introduced in the United States in the late 1800s. Originally invented in the United Kingdom in 1874, heroin was first created as a result to treat morphine addicts. Not only was it deemed as a non-addictive alternative to morphine, it was even given in drug kits at local pharmacies (“History of Heroin”, 2017).

 Surprisingly, heroin can treat a good amount of medical conditions. Some potential benefits heroin could provide would include treating basic things such as colds and headaches (“The History of Heroin”, 2017).

 Heroin is a painkiller. So it will obviously eliminate pain, temporarily that is. Medical use of heroin is still used in some countries to treat severe pain such as end-stage cancer pain,

According to the “Social Impact of Heroin” (2017), heroin has many impacts on society. The first being costs of crime. This includes state and federal incarceration costs, losses of crime victims, policing costs, legal costs, and social welfare resources. The second impact would be productivity loss due to lower earnings, incarceration, unemployment, and mortality. Another impact heroin has on society would be costs of medical complications such as hepatitis B and C, AIDS, tuberculosis, pre-natal health issues, and health insurance administration costs. Healthcare system resource utilization is the next part of society that is impacted. This would include visits to the emergency room, hospitals, and doctor’s offices, as well as treatments, and social welfare. And lastly child welfare would be needed for kids whose parents are heroin users (“Social Impact of Heroin”, 2017).

 The use of heroin has increased in the past decade by at least five times (Reaney, 2017). According to CNN, in 2016, the amount of people in the United States using heroin was at 948,000. The death rate of heroin overdose is about 13,219 deaths in 2016 (Kounang, 2017). And unfortunately these numbers are slowly

And opiates are painkillers. So when individuals are not feeling well or in pain, they would resort to heroin to relieve their symptoms.

 An example of this would be during times of the American Civil War (mid-to-late 1800s). Soldiers were coming back addicted to morphine, and the solution that was brought up to fix this problem was heroin. Then slowly, heroin became a solution to any ailment one was suffering ranging from the common cold to pain from cancer (“History of Heroin”, 2017).

 In 1890, the United States enforced a law which applied tax on opium and morphine (“History of Heroin and Opium Use and Abuse”, 2017). So instead of realizing what the drug was doing to their citizens, the government was making a profit off of the product sales. This could also affect the use of heroin all together because people would be less motivated to buy it if prices are increasing.

 The Heroin Act of 1924, which made manufacture and possession of heroin illegal, influenced people to start distributing under the radar. In 1925, a heroin black market was created in Chinatown in New York (“History of Heroin and Opium Use and Abuse”,