Calmare Therapeutics Inc (fka CTTC)

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60 Minutes' Blames The Pharmaceutical Industry For America's Heroin Epidemic

Heroin in the Heartland
The faces of heroin include the young, middle-to-upper class and suburban. What was once thought of as an inner-city problem is now a national epidemic
It's easy for kids to sell their excess pills. They're popular recreational drugs in high schools and colleges -- so MUCH in demand that one pill can cost up to 80 dollars.
Pill addicts like Tyler often switch to heroin because it's a cheaper opiate, with a bigger high. Tyler was in and out of rehab four times. The night he came home the last time, he couldn't fight the uncontrollable urge that is heroin addiction.
He shot up in his bedroom and died of a heroin overdose. He wasn't the only addict on his college football team.
After Tyler died, the Campbells met many families whose children were heroin addicts in the suburbs of Columbus. Like Tyler, most got hooked on pills first.
Bill Whitaker: Started with pain pills?
Parents: Absolutely.

T.J. and Heidi Riggs' daughter died of a heroin overdose. Marin was a high school basketball player and captain of her golf team. Lea Heidman and Brian Malone's daughter Alyssa died of an overdose earlier this year. Brenda Stewart has two sons in recovery. Tracy Morrison is Jenna Morrison's mother and has a second daughter who is also a recovering addict. Rob Brandt's son was an addict.
He says his son Robby got hooked on pain pills prescribed by a dentist after his wisdom teeth were removed. He was in training with the National Guard, hoping to serve in Afghanistan.
Rob Brandt: And when he came home, he met up with an old friend that he used to buy and sell prescription medications with and that old friend introduced him to heroin. And we did the-- we did rehab, we did relapse, we did rehab and he got clean. But the drug called his name again and-- and he said yes and that was the last time and he passed from an accidental overdose.

Tracy Morrison: I am a nurse...
Tracy Morrison, Jenna's mother, trained to be a nurse more than 30 years ago. She says the medical profession must bear some responsibility for the heroin epidemic. She says doctors overprescribe pain medications.
Tracy Morrison: I graduated in the 80s. I was a nursing director when we decided to swing the pendulum from not treating pain to treat everybody's pain. I was a part of that. And at that time, I had no idea that we were addicting people.
Last year, three quarters of a billion pain pills were prescribed by doctors in Ohio - nearly 65 pills for every man, woman and child in the state.





Matthew Herper
FORBES STAFF
I cover science and medicine, and believe this is biology's century.
FOLLOW ON FORBES (2059)
Sunday evening, 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker went to Columbus, Ohio, to understand America’s heroin epidemic. The drug is becoming cheaper and easier to get, he argues, and its stigma is vanishing. But his reporting places much of the blame for the addictions and deaths he documents on opioid pain pills. People become addicted to the pills, and than switch to heroin because it is cheaper.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2015/11/01/after-investigating-americas-heroin-epidemic-60-minutes-indicts-the-pharmaceutical-industry/