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The ‘Opioid Overdose Epidemic’ – How The Media Makes A Bad Situation Worse
If you listen to the news, you’ll no doubt be convinced that we’re experiencing an ‘opioid overdose epidemic’, fueled by increasingly pure strains of heroin. In fact, the medical community is well aware that heroin purity has nothing to do with it. Most people who die drug-related deaths do so because of polydrug poisoning – the fatal mixing of different drugs (alcohol is often the secondary offender) which combine to close down the body’s systems. Unfortunately, the media obfusticates this in its search for a story with a clear villain, ensuring that people have no idea of the dangers of polydrug usage.
The media loves a villain, and heroin makes a very convenient one. To listen to the media, one would think that total abstinence and twelve-step programs are the only way to get off heroin. Those who go for methadone programs to get clean (which actually have a much higher rate of success) are only prolonging their addiction – they are still ‘using’. Such a narrative provides a nice tale of over-arcing life change and redemption against the villain of heroin, but the facts do not support it. Methadone, taken in isolation and not mixed with other drugs, actually has the highest rate of success in weaning users off heroin and gradually off opioids in general.
In the old days, drug addicts were aware of the dangers of polydrug poisoning, and used to warn each other to stick to the one drug at a time. Now, the media, in its search for narrative, has ensured that people are unaware of this problem, meaning that more and more people are dying through mixing their drugs. If the issue is to be solved, the truth of the matter must be exposed.
Resource:
How the Media Is Fueling the So-Called Opioid Overdose Epidemic by Kenneth Anderson.
This powerful article by Kenneth Anderson looks at how the media and reporting affects this issue: http://www.rehabs.com/pro-talk-articles/how-the-media-is-fueling-the-so-called-opioid-overdose-epidemic/