[tP5n]

That's utter nonsense. Do you realize heroin is a fancy name for diacetylmorphine, an analgesic commonly used to treat chronic and post-surgical pain?

In other words, thousands of people around the world received that 'one shot' today and if you didn't tell them, probably wouldn't even know they just had a hit of h (and none of them suddenly loses their ability for rational thought or their life's goals).

[afro88]

Thousands of people are given heroin-like (or actually heroin in your case) pain killers for chronic and post-surgical pain and move onto illegal forms like heroin after because they're addicted. Like the dude in the article.

"One shot" is an exaggeration, apologies. My point was that heroin and it's analogues are highly addictive substances, in an aggressive way that beer weed and ecstacy aren't. You can't directly compare and equate beer with heroin for the sake of argument for legalization. Drugs aren't equal and the addictive properties of one are different from another. They have to be considered on a case by case basis.

[atom-morgan]

It's also worth watching episode 7 of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown where he goes back home to Massachusetts. A large portion of the episode is focused on this.

You have kids in high school who are injured in sports, are prescribed painkillers by their doctors which eventually gets them on heroin. The addicts didn't wake up one day thinking, "You know what? I think I'm going to try heroin today." It was legal pharmaceuticals with falsely advertised addiction rates that got them onto it.