Last week, I wrote a feature for the Evening Sun about the growing heroin problem in York and Adams counties. Each person with whom I spoke had a similar message: Heroin users are not “junkies.”
They can come from a range of backgrounds, be any age and start using for any number of reasons. The junkie stereotype, people told me, only leads to biases and misconceptions that prevent addicts from receiving the help they need to get better .
For example, Katrina Mooney, nursing director at Hanover rehabilitation center Clarity Way, said this stigma is a daily issue in her line of work.
Unlike substances like Oxycodone or alcohol, heroin is strictly a street drug, meaning people have no legal means of obtaining it, Mooney said. For this reason, even other addicts at the facility treat heroin users like the lowest of the low.
This negativity, she said, also extends into the medical community. When patients have medical issues, Clarity Way sends them to local hospitals for treatment. Hospitals, however, are hesitant to treat people addicted to heroin and other opiate because they assume the patients are drug-seeking.
“We see the stigma every day,” Mooney said. “The lack of education in the medical community is ridiculous.”
Tracy Lawrence-Felton, who uses her Facebook page Hope vs. Heroin to reach out to addicts who need assistance, said she feels like some people ultimately choose not to seek treatment because of the shame that many feel because of their addiction.
“You get a lot of kids that reach out and say, ‘I want help, I want help,’ but when you say this is what you have to do, they don’t want to do it because they’re ashamed,” Lawrence-Felton said.
Lawrence-Felton also experienced this stigma firsthand after her son, Aaron Lawrence, died from a heroin overdose in 2010. After his death, certain family members refused to talk about the way he died. Others judged her for not doing enough to prevent his passing.
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Tracy Lawrence-Felton holds a sign she brings to heroin awareness rallies, which has a picture of her son, who died of a heroin overdose four years ago, on it in her Hanover home April 1. (Clare Becker – The Evening Sun)
Over the past four years, she has learned not to take these accusations to heart.
“I say to everyone who wants to look down on an addict, to look down on an addict’s family, to say they should have raised their children better, they should have done this, they should have done that… I did everything,” she said. “And never, ever should you consider that it won’t happen to you.”
What parents should know about heroin
On April 1, representatives from the Adams County District Attorney’s Office, Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Drug Task Force and Adams County Coroner’s Office discussed strategies for parents to uncover signs of drug and alcohol abuse in their children.
While presenters said heroin use is not common among middle and high school-aged students, they provided the following information regarding the drug:
- Heroin is a brown powder that can be injected, smoked or snorted. Many users who begin by snorting often end up injecting.
- Street names for the drug include H, brown, dirt, horse, dope and smack.
- Heroin is typically sold in 3/100-gram quantities called bag. The drug, however, is not typically transported in an actual bag; instead, dealers might use wax paper, aluminum foil or empty pill capsules.
- Locally, ten bags of heroin is called a bundle.
- Not all heroin users will have easily-visible marks. The drug can be injected almost anywhere, including in between fingers and toes.
- When users inject the drug, they often mix the heroin powder with water, heat the liquid on a spoon and then use a syringe to draw the heroin through a piece of cotton before injection.
A child has no reasonable legal expectation of privacy in a parent’s home, said Assistant District Attorney Brian Sinnett, For this reason, he said, parents should check their children’s rooms and cars frequently for signs of drug use.
If you or someone you know need assistance related to a heroin addiction, the York/Adams Drug and Alcohol Commission provides an extensive list of resources and tips on its website.