Heroin Has Expanded Its User Base

Scientific American, June 4, 2014

"In the last half century, heroin contributed to thousands of deaths, from Janis Joplin to Philip Seymour Hoffman to legions of people now remembered only by their friends and families.

But compared with 50 years ago, the drug’s consumers look strikingly different now. Back then, a typical user was often an inner-city minority male whose first drug experience was with heroin, at about the age of 17. Today’s users are mostly non-urban white men and women in their late twenties whose gateway drug was a prescription opioid.

The findings come from surveys of some 2,800 heroin users who self-reported demographic information and other data when they entered treatment centers. The results are in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. [Theodore J. Cicero et al, The Changing Face of Heroin Use in the United States: A Retrospective Analysis of the Past 50 Years]" Read more