Heroin Crisis Center - Essay Example

Heroin Crisis Center The road to rehabilitation is long and sometimes a journey in which the addicted individual never is able to complete that journey back to health. Drug use of any kind can be very difficult to end, but heroin is particularly difficult to stop using because of the nature of the drug. Long Island has recently seen an increase in heroin use that has ended the lives of some teenagers due to overdose (Cuadra-Fernandez). The options for the addict and the non-addict user seem to be limited to either continuing use or making the huge step in entering rehab. This proposal intends to show that an intermediary facility that can help during times of crisis and will provide a conduit for the user towards rehabilitation without forcing them into treatment. Through offering services that address the needs of the user in order to keep them alive, it is hoped that eventually they will enter rehabilitation and end their addictive behaviors before it results in death. Heroin is a drug that is extracted from poppies, making it a lucrative crop drug for many nations without other resources. There are three forms of the drug, one being a white powder, the other being a brown powder, and the last being a black, sticky product that is referred to as ‘black tar’. Heroin is often diluted with substances that look similar to the type of product that is being sold, such as adding powdered milk to white powder to extend its volume. Sometimes, however, a substance that is toxic such as strychnine will be found in the drug, increasing the harmful effects and possibly leading to a more assured death through drug overdose (Cuadra-Fernandez). The drug is so powerful that anytime an addict is not on heroin, they are suffering from withdrawal, so any day that is spent without the drug is painful and miserable for the user (Rasmussen and Benson 47). According to Moraes, there are two terms that refer to the type of use that a user of heroin will fall into. A ‘chipper’ is an occasional user who uses the drug recreationally and with an addiction that requires a focused attention to the drug. A ‘junkie’ is someone who cannot go without the drug and has behaviors that can be described as associated with addiction. Stephens discusses types of heroin users and labels them either addicts or the concerned non-addicts. Concerned non-addicts are in jeopardy of becoming an addict and have a concern towards that regard. Non-concerned non-addicts have no fear that they will become addicts. In comparing the types of users, the addict typically is no longer in mainstream life, their lifestyle is more deviant, they are likely to be unemployed, and have a higher rate of other criminal activity to support their habit. The concerned non-addict tend to still be “bonded to conventional activities. They were more likely to be high school graduates, avoided engaging in illegal activities, and expressed concern about the consequences of heroin use on their job and families’ (Stephans 61). Beyond the influences the use of heroin in its pharmacological effects, are the medical issues that can come from the use of the drug. Because the drug is often administered through hypodermic needle, the risks of blood pathogens being transmitted are very high. Diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B can be a very real outcome to drug use (Cuadra-Fernandez). As well, the social consequences can be higher than expected, especially for a teenager who is unprepared for the permanence that can result when the drug use leads to arrest, overdose, or discovery which will all lead to the behavior being revealed to family and friends, thus placing them in a position of being somewhat of an outcast. The group that the crisis center that is proposed in this paper would address would be primarily made up of ’chippers’ and concerned non-addicts, their use not yet putting them into the downward social and physical spiral that an addict will experience. While the center would certainly provide services to addicts, it will target those that have yet to have lost their family and friends and still have the potential for living a fully expressed life. The AIDS Center of Queens County provides clean needles, food, and counseling services so that addicts can have a safer experience until they are ready to face rehabilitation. Each person who comes into the center will have “a bag of clean syringes, a meal voucher from a local restaurant, and a MetroCard” (Daily News Staff). People who go to the center are able to utilize counseling services and medical care in order to help manage their disease. However, it is unlikely that the concerned non-addict is taking advantage of these services. A center that provides similar services, but will also provide services focused on breaking beyond the feared outcome of addiction. In order to stop the cycle towards addiction, providing services that address such problems as education, career paths, and social services that allow for counseling and group therapies not directly addressing drug use, can help those who have felt the need to use find a reason not to use. As well, there is a lot of information about using the drug that the casual user will not know which can lead them towards premature death or severe medical consequences. Having clean needles and being provided information for their drug use will help to lower the incidents of death and medical harm, while providing services that combat the reasons they chose to use in the first place through providing counseling for the past and services towards goals for the future, may allow the concerned non-addict to shift into the position of potential in which the future is a bit more hopeful. Communities that can be tapped for outreach towards the establishment of such a center can be local churches, those already involved with rehabilitation, and those who have used heroin, but gone on to end their use and created valued lives. Those who have had the experience and ‘lived to tell the tale’ will be invaluable in creating the type of atmosphere that will best break through the desire to need in comparison to the future that is possible without the use of the drug. Where most services are directed at the addict, this will be directed at the casual user. Casual use puts the user in the position of becoming an addict, and in preventing that outcome, the center will help to diminish the population of addicts. In providing these types of services, Long Island will potentially see an end to the proliferation of this drug in its community. In maintaining hope for the future and mainstream relationships, there is hope that a user will not turn into an addict. The non-addict is on a dangerous precipice. The teenager who is experimenting will have little to no idea of the potential consequences and even if they understand the possibilities, like all finality in the mind of a teenager, they may not have any conceptual understanding of those consequences actually occurring. By providing both safe methods of continuing their drug use as well as services that address the potential future that ending use will bring, the center can address the needs of those who are in jeopardy, but have not yet crossed over to a more difficult position to end, that of the drug addict. Through the use of addict focused services reframed for the use of those who have not yet become a full member of the addicted culture, the connections to mainstream society can be strengthened and harmful outcomes of casual use can be decreased. References Cuadra-Fernandez, Maria Elisa. Healthy Parenting Tip Sheet - Heroin on Long Island, What Parents Should Know. Social Workers: Help Starts Here. 2011. Web. 10 July 2011. Daily News Staff. Queens AIDS Group Provides Clean Needles, a Meal - No Questions. NY Daily News. 6 April 2008. Web. 10 July 2011. Moraes, Francis, and Michael J. North. The Little Book of Heroin. Berkeley, CA: Ronin Pub, 2000. Print. Rasmussen, David W, and Bruce L. Benson. The Economic Anatomy of a Drug War: Criminal Justice in the Commons. Lanham, Md. u.a: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994. Print. Stephens, Richard C. The Street Addict Role: A Theory of Heroin Addiction. Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1991. Print. Read More