Goodbye, Meth, Hello Heroin

While the use of crystal meth — the highly addictive drug made famous by the hit TV series "Breaking Bad" — is waning, heroin — the opiate derivative blamed in the death of popular actor Philip Seymour Hoffman — is on the rise.
According to the federal National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and released last September, the number of methamphetamine users in 2012 fell to 440,000, from 731,000 in 2006, a drop attributed in part to laws restricting the availability of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient.
In that same period, however, the number of Americans shooting "smack" spiked, from 373,000 to 669,000.
According to news reports, a recent raid in the Bronx turned up 33 pounds of the drug and hundreds of thousands of small envelopes used in distribution and stamped with brand names. Among the names found in the pre-Super Bowl Bronx raid was "N.F.L.," a timely nod to the Super Bowl.
Several reports have traced the trend toward heroin use to a nationwide crackdown on prescription pills such as oxycodone. A recent New York Times article quoted Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer at the Phoenix House Foundation, a drug-treatment center, and president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, who said, "What we're seeing, as pills become more difficult to access, is a shift to the black market and heroin. It's not easy to get the opioid genie back into the bottle."
Hoffman is just the latest celebrity to succumb to lethal drug, but he is not alone. "Glee" star Corey Monteith's shocking death in July 2013 was attributed to a toxic mix of heroin and alcohol. Saturday Night Live star John Belushi died from a "speedball" overdose (heroin and cocaine). In 1970, iconic rocker Janis Joplin OD's on heroin. Smack was also blamed in the deaths of actor River Phoenix and rockers Curt Cobain, Sid Vicious and Dee Dee Ramone.
Other celebs who have admitted to having been hooked on the Big H include James Taylor, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Yoko Ono, Keith Richard, Miles Davis and Lou Reed.