Drug use

Between 2004 and 2013, the use of heroin rose in the U.S. overall by 60% according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control. Certain groups led the way - use by women doubled, use by whites doubled, and use by ages 18-25 doubled.

There's more: between 2002 and 2013, heroin-overdose-related deaths rose by almost 400%. Surprising, since I haven't read or heard anything about this up til now. At what point is it called an epidemic?

Looks like some new strategies in Mexico for getting drugs into the "veins of people across the United States" may account for at least some of it.

"Communities where heroin had never been seen before--from Charlotte, NC and Huntington, WVA, to Salt Lake City and Portland, OR--were overrun with it. Local police and residents were stunned. How could heroin, long considered a drug found only in the dense, urban environments along the East Coast, and trafficked into the United States by enormous Colombian drug cartels, be so incredibly ubiquitous in the American heartland?"