Crafty alien cells and other entrepreneurs eager to share the market continue to re-imagine a profitable product in high demand, and they continue to find new methods and products to deliver the goods.
Authorities said this new form of heroin is hitting the streets of Ohio. John Burke, the commander of Warren County’s drug task force, said they haven’t seen anything like this in Warren County yet. He said the pills are originating in Mexico and they’re often disguised as tablets, which look like oxycodone.
“I don't know if it seems more benign to people that it's a pill and not in the form of a powder as heroin is. It's really hard to say but somebody's decided that it's a good marketing technique,” Burke said.
Last year in Warren County, 24 people died in heroin-related deaths. In 2015, in January alone seven people have died from heroin-related incidents.
(Ben Patracco. "Authorities: New form of heroin found in Ohio." WLWT5. April 24, 2015)
Of course, switching out drugs like Percocet for heroin increases the chance of addiction and overdose. “You have someone who thinks they’re getting a pharmaceutical-grade opiate, such as percocet,” said Sgt. Jason Lapp of the Bellefontaine Police. “They think they’re getting a 30 milligram pill. However, unbeknownst to them, there’s heroin in it. And they keep taking this drug and all of a sudden, they’re addicted to heroin.”
(News staff. "Percocet was really heroin in disguise." WHIO. April 27, 2015)
The Ohio discovery wasn't the first. In 2013 and 2014, similar drugs were found in other states ...
Deputy District Attorney Sharon McKenna, Chief of the Drug Enforcement Unit, said there was a Delaware County, Pennsylvania, drug seizure in September 2013 of tablets that resembled prescription painkillers, but when analyzed, they contained heroin.
And, in 2014, the Regional Operations Intelligence Center in New Jersey issued an alert regarding seized heroin tablets which had the same color and markings found on prescription 30mg Oxycodone tablets.
(Cheryl Steinberg. "Heroin Disguised as Oxycodone Found in Pennsylvania."
Palm Partners. August 11, 2014)
Again and again and again we repeat the mantra: "Where there is a will, there is a way." This double-edged reality must be realized by the consumer in an incredible marketing chain that promises to make available the product no matter what. The will of the manufacturer and the will of the distributor are much too strong to break.
Illegal opiates will continue to travel across county and be readily available to those with sweaty, eagerly waiting hands full of dollar bills in Scioto County, Ohio. The will of the opiate marketer to gain fame and fortune will not abate. It is his business, and it supplies him with a huge profit.
It is the will of the consumer of the deadly product that must stiffen. The will of the consumer must be tougher than that of the provider, or else the health epidemic will worsen. The dependent and the addicted that live among us must find other successful means to deal with whatever physical and psychological pain they encounter and stop buying heroin and other dangerous opiates.
Some good treatments are now available to those who need help to find their strong will. Yet, many of these strengthening aids are extremely expensive and thus unavailable to poor people who suffer addiction. This is where all of us must become supporters of strategies that increase willpower in opiate users -- not only encouraging treatment but also supporting evidence-based education and pushing lawmakers to fund support to fight drug abuse.
The "way" and the "will" of severely addicted citizens is infected by a horrible disease called drug addiction. Simply put, those who contract the disease lack sufficient means to overcome their malady. No one takes opiates willingly to become an addict just as no smoker puffs on cigarettes to develop lung cancer. I am not making excuses for addiction: I am just stating the frustrating facts.
Unlike smoking a few cigarettes or drinking a few shots of Black Jack, consuming opiates will often trigger the addictive personality although the buyer self-administers precious little intake. With dependency, willpower greatly diminishes, and with addiction, willpower often vanishes completely. This is how a person actually "becomes" a substance -- his or her heart and soul fully consumed.
Talking "will power" with a Jonesing addict is like begging a hungry tiger not to devour Bambi. We cannot cure a disease by talking and begging, believe me. It just doesn't work.
Whatever long process it takes to re-establish a disinfected human will is the answer to stopping the heroin trade -- it must be done one addict at a time. But, our lack of patience and abhorrence for dealers usually results in arrest after arrest of criminal traffickers who have stood in long lines to replace those who had previously smuggled the product of great profit. New recruits can't wait to get their chance to continue their cells in Ohio, and so it goes ... on and on and on.
Develop the needed willpower to resist polluting the body with poisonous illegal opiates. Stop the risk. Stop the consumption. Problem solved. It sounds simple, but it is anything but easy.
Remember when parents urged us as youth not to have sex, to wait until we were more mature and able to handle the responsibilities involved, and to take necessary precautions in order not to risk the possible health problems and an unplanned pregnancy? How did that work out? Ask both those with strong and weak wills what happened when those luscious lust chemicals churned through their bodies in the heat of sexual passion. High on love? We live and we learn.
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