Lot of noise coming out of the US at the moment about - I think mostly because it's starting to impact upon white, middle class America rather than any overiding sense of social moral need, but essentially there is a growing number of herion addicts whose journey to addiction began with being excessively prescribed opiate-based pain meds post-surgery/injury, etc. It seems the practice reached something of a zenith in the late 90's early 2000's, however, rather than relieve the problem, stricter rules on prescription simply left a lot of people, who had become heavily dependant on the prescribed meds, unable to get their 'fix' and turning to heroin.
But that alone wasn't enough to raise the serious objections - not until the widespread arrival of fentanyl - an opiate based med alleged to be something like 50-100 times stronger than heroin, now being illegally used as a means of boost the potency of street heroin and causing a ridiculous spike in cases of overdose, quite often in reasonably affluent neighbourhoods and communities.
The BBC has been running a report and an associated podcast and TV report on the situation;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37224075
So it turns out all these years that weed has been villainized as a potential gateway drug, despite being non-addictive, impossible to overdose on and reckoned by many chronic pain sufferers as the best painkiller you can get, the real gateway drug that leads to a live of a being junkie and possibly winding up dead from a overdose, is the perfectly legal shit that you can get from the doctor if you badly sprain your ankle playing sports!
So - I'm growing a weed plant in my utility cupboard - and legally I'm the bad guy. The mind boggles.
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