Report: Heroin use soars in US

Heroin use in the United States is soaring, especially in smaller cities where the drug is plentiful and prescription painkillers are tougher to get, a report says.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the number of people who say they have used heroin in the past year has jumped 53.5 percent to 620,000, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Drug officials say the rise in heroin use has been largely due to law-enforcement crackdown on unlawful use of prescription painkillers and drug-company reformulations that make the pills harder to crush and snort.

“Basically, you have a generation of ready-made heroin addicts,” said Matthew Barnes, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Seattle division.

Drug experts say the risk of heroin overdose has increased because the heroin sold today is more potent than in the past.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3,094 overdose deaths in the US in 2010, a 55 percent increase from 2000.

Unlike large cities where heroin use was widespread in the 1970’s and 1980’s, many smaller cities lack addiction-treatment options and are far from hospital emergency rooms, raising the risk that an overdose will be deadly.

The US has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world, despite having tough anti-drug laws, according to the World Health Organization.

” The US, which has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies,” WHO says.