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Prescription opioid addicts 40 times as likely to start using heroin

Tom Magnarelli
/
WRVO News
The crowd at a heroin and opioid forum in Syracuse. A photograph of 24-year-old Morgan Brittany Axe appears on the screen. She died from a heroin overdose in November.

Onondaga County held a heroin and opioid forum to provide information on the drug epidemic and how users can get help. Onondaga County Health Commissioner Dr. Indu Gupta said people who are addicted to prescription opioids are 40 times more likely to become addicted to heroin.

“Because it’s cheaper, it’s purer and it’s very easily replaceable,” Gupta said.

At the forum held in Syracuse Wednesday evening, Gupta said Onondaga County is following a national trend with rising rates of drug addicts that use both heroin and prescription opioids.

Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney acknowledged that the county has a drug problem and no single solution is going to solve it. She said the drug epidemic crosses all socioeconomic boundaries.  

"It doesn’t matter where you live, what color your skin or how much money you make," Mahoney said.

Rep. John Katko (R-Syracuse) said addictions are going up and more treatments are needed. Katko sits on a bipartisan congressional task force to address the heroin epidemic across the country.

“We’re going to address the heroin issue this year in Congress, I assure you," Katko said. "Come hell or high water because I’m going to make sure we do. I want to make sure you understand that we at the federal level know how bad it is.”

A study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that since 2009 participants using both heroin and prescription opioids has risen by 10 percent while primarily using only one those drugs by themselves has decreased or remained flat.

The forum featured officials from law enforcement, addiction specialists and physicians and included Narcan training which reduces the effects of opioids.

In 2014, 26 people died from heroin-related overdoses in Onondaga County.

 

Tom Magnarelli is a reporter covering the central New York and Syracuse area. He joined WRVO as a freelance reporter in 2012 while a student at Syracuse University and was hired full time in 2015. He has reported extensively on politics, education, arts and culture and other issues around central New York.