How America Got Hooked On Heroin | Answers With Joe

this video is supported by brilliant org here's an area in Ohio that some people call the crossroads of America it's where highway 75 and 70 intersect and it serves as something of a midpoint between the Midwest and the East Coast the Great Lakes in Appalachia and for that reason it's also the first stop for a huge percentage of drugs that come into the United States this makes Montgomery County ground zero for the opioid epidemic that's destroying lives all across the United States and record numbers and the numbers are staggering in 2017 Montgomery County alone saw over 4,000 overdose cases resulting in 566 deaths and its height in May of 2017 the Montgomery County coroner was processing three overdose deaths every single day it made up 70% of their cases that they've worked on nationwide overdose deaths are the number one cause of death for people under 50 years old more than gun death more than car crashes more than AIDS last year alone 72,000 people died of drug overdose in the United States that's the same as 24 911s and it's still happening on average a person dies of a drug overdose in the United States every 7.5 minutes by the time you finish watching this video two families will have lost loved ones too mother's father's siblings kids needlessly slipping away right now this is the opioid crisis how do we get to this point what can we do about it so first things first there's a lot of you out there that are gonna see what this video is all about and you're just gonna shut down we tend to do that when we look at addiction we tend to point to the flaws in that person to them they need to get their act together it's easy to do that but let's get something straight here anyone can get addicted to literally anything anything that hits that pleasure receptor in your brain and gives you that hit of dopamine you can get addicted to it that's why we can't go five minutes without checking our phones that's why every time we post something on social media we keep looking back to get those likes and those thumbs up we obsess over that it gives us that tiny little head of dopamine we keep coming back for it that's how people develop weird obsessive compulsive behaviors it kind of calms and soothes that part of their brain that requires it people with food issues same thing people with kleptomania of self-harm issues same thing well truth be told I'm pretty much addicted than pumpkin-seeds used to be sunflower seeds those are the gateway seeds literally if I'm not pounding these things into my mouth while I'm trying to work I can't focus I can't sit still I might as well be going through withdrawal symptoms I've actually had to have my front teeth bonded twice because I can't stop Nachshon on these things so Who am I to judge a heroin addict but I can get this hooked on something that doesn't make me feel like God Himself is holding me in his arms and telling me that everything's gonna be okay and that we're all connected in the universe is love but heroin does exactly that thanks to the opioid receptors in our nerves so let's say your favorite team just lost so you punch a wall and you break your hand first of all get some anger management it's just a game calm down but the second thing that happens is your nerves send pain were signals to your brain and your brain responds by producing endorphins endorphins are an endogenous opioid meaning it's made inside the body and it helps to sort of manage the pain by hitting the opioid receptors in our nerves like a key in a lock it basically tells them to chill out with that pain signal now obviously endorphins are not strong enough to stop the pain signal completely but they do produce a mild state of euphoria which is why some people use pain as you know for the purpose of sexual arousal they do this by binding to dopamine inhibitory neurons in our brains these neurons normally keep the break on dopamine production but when these endorphins click into that lock it causes them to let out the brake and let the dopamine flow but opioids like heroin have a similar chemical structure to those endorphins so they can slip into that same lock only they have a much stronger pain relieving effect and they release more dopamine giving you a state of extreme euphoria and people have been using opioids for this purpose for thousands of years going all the way back to the ancient Sumerians opium dens were popular in the 1800s and heroin was available to buy over-the-counter as recently as 1924 in fact Bayer the same company that's famous for aspirin promoted heroin use on children now throughout the 20th century pharmaceutical companies have worked to synthesize heroin for medicinal use including oxycodone which was remarketed and tweaked a little bit in the 90s and rebranded as oxycontin by Purdue pharmaceuticals Purdue pushed the hell out of oxycontin offering bonuses to doctors and Clinics who prescribed the drug and it flowed like candy making over 35 billion dollars but the problem with opioids is of course it's very addicting this is because the brain is constantly trying to rebalance its chemistry including dopamine so if you take a substance that floods the brain with dopamine it has a tendency to keep pulling back and keep pulling back trying to rebalance itself this is a phenomenon known as tolerance and this means you need to take more and more of the drug to get the same effect until you get to the point where you're taking a dangerous level of the drug and it can actually paralyze your diaphragm this is how people die from a drug overdose they just stop breathing suffocate just a helpful reminder that's probably happening to somebody out there right now now with oxycontin flooding the market and getting people hooked on synthetic heroin all across the country it became very obvious that this was a problem it needed to be scaled back so governments and organizations decided to hold back in the number of oxycontin prescriptions that they wrote but it's not as easy as just taking the pills away because your body has now become adjusted to its opioid receptors being filled with synthetic heroin and it's nerves being told now that those receptors are open the nerves are super sensitive and you just feel pain all over your body your brain then produces more chemicals I try to compensate for all of that and your body's just completely out of whack for a while this is withdrawal now for some people withdrawal is just a temporary inconvenience it passes like a bad case of the flu but for other people for reasons of genetics or environment or any other number of factors it's a living nightmare and without access to prescription pills people turn to the only thing available to end this agony heroin right off the street that goes without saying the black-market heroin is less safe than a controlled prescription pill but to make matters even worse a lot of heroin out there today is actually laced with fentanyl a drug that's 50 times stronger than heroin and excusing heroin are still in that cycle of Tolerance that makes them have to use more and more of the drug to get the same effect using more and more the drug of course gets more expensive so one way to alleviate that expense is to just use something much stronger like fentanyl and this is what's decimating populations in Ohio and all across the country fentanyl is so strong that an amount the size of a grain of salt can kill you police officers that actually handle this stuff they have to wear thick gloves and face masks because it can actually seep through your skin they can inhale it and kill them in case you're wondering why fentanyl so strong like why does this even exist in the first place it's because fentanyl was actually created for terminal cancer patients it's really more of a palliative care option but by the time a person is resorted to using fentanyl to get high they are flirting with death every single day in fact some stories say that addicts actually seek out the dealer is somebody who just died from a drug overdose because the perception is that that person must have really strong stuff now again you hear stories like this and you can't help but think that these people are just crazy or suicidal and you just want to write them off but they're just human beings caught in a trap often a trap not of their own making and often a trap that's exacerbated by a lack of social support that's made even worse by the way we handle the war on drugs by treating drug users as criminals which is something that I've talked about in a previous video and this can happen to anybody if it hasn't happened to somebody that you personally know it's definitely happened to somebody that you've heard of Philip Seymour Hoffman Prince Tom Petty Heath Ledger just a name a few now there's any good news here it's that the drug cartels have actually scaled back the use of fentanyl in their heroine because it turns out it's actually killing so many of their customers that they're starting to lose money capitalism so in an attempt to combat this crisis communities have turned to all kinds of different options some more effective than others a key weapon in the fight against overdose is naloxone when injected or inhaled it can actually reverse the effects of those opioids by kicking them out of the opioid receptors and our nerves saving somebody that's on the brink of death now lock stone really is kind of a miracle drug it's saved over 16,000 lives in New Jersey alone 16,000 lives in a single state just imagine what their overdose rates would have been if it wasn't for that in fact back in July naloxone and save the life of Demi Lovato if you know anybody who might be at risk having a personal supply of naloxone can literally be the difference between life and death it goes by the brand name narcan and it's actually available from CVS Walmart and Walgreens in 45 states over the counter you can just go buy it but if you need a subscription go talk to a doctor they want to keep you alive and they won't report you to authorities by the way if you see an overdose and you don't have naloxone on hand immediately call 9-1-1 most states have Good Samaritan laws that protect you from any kind of prosecution more information on all down below but as amazing as naloxone is it is still not any kind of a treatment for opioid addiction the most effective treatments can be broken down by abstinence programs like Narcotics Anonymous or maintenance programs that use opioid substitutes unfortunately studies have shown that abstinence programs have mixed results at best though they can be good to provide the social structure if somebody needs that so maintenance programs with opioid substitutes have become a promising option one of the more promising and popular substitutes is a substance called kratom kratom or cor Tom I've heard it said both ways is a tree from Southeast Asia and people for thousands of years have chewed their leaves for its stimulant effect much like poppy seeds or the coke and leaves from the coca plant native users report that it gives them a stimulant effect kind of helps them to do their work a little bit better but when consumed in higher doses it can actually simulate the effects of opioids this is because the major active compounds in kratom mature arginine and seven-times rocks Amite raja named work on opioid receptors in their nerves which technically makes it an opioid the difference is it lacks a secondary mechanism that can depress breathing and causes people to overdose so it's a lot less deadly don't get me wrong kratom is addictive and there have been some deaths associated with it but it is only in the double digits as opposed to you know the opioids in the five digits the question is does create an addiction lead to taking more dangerous amounts of kratom or lead them to taking more dangerous types of substances scientific consensus on this does not exist we don't know right now which is why the FDA and the DEA have tried to get people to not use kratom Krait independence is probably a lesser evil than dependence on synthetic opioids but it is not a replacement for a detox program with professional counseling in lieu of extensive medical research most of what we know about kratom is based off of anecdotal evidence for some people it's been an absolute lifesaver for others it was a temporary flirtation before they relapse back into the harder stuff so kratom is hardly a silver bullet those who had success with kratom likely had other factors that contributed to their success things like the social structure that we always talk about family and friends and interests that they could dive into if you have those ingredients kratom might be a good part of your recovery if you don't might help Cranham is of course not the only traditional substance that's been touted as a treatment for addiction treatments like ayahuasca and iboga both have shown a whole lot of promise but those are illegal the United States whereas kratom is not illegal with the opioid epidemic taking lives on a minute-by-minute basis all of these substances and all of these treatments need to be studied extensively so that we can push those out to people who need it because for right now all we've got is anecdotal evidence and that leaves a lot to be desired because the elephant in the room when it comes to addiction is that addicts aren't exactly the most reliable source of information and of course conspiracy theories abound about some shadowy groups that are trying to keep an effective treatment away from middle-class Americans so pharmaceutical companies can rake in millions it's important to remember when you're talking about anecdotal evidence that personal stories have a specifically strong pull on our imagination it can sound a lot like capital T truth even if it flies against the face of all of scientific consensus look I get it when you're sinking into quicksand you want to grab on to a lifeline and the deeper you go the more any lifeline will do but it's important the further you go into this cycle that you find the right lifeline and of course the deeper you go down the harder it is to suss that out this is why it's important to seek out a professional and medically supervised treatment program you can always try kratom or any other alternative substance on top of that but you have to start by putting yourself in the hands of professionals look I could probably get a lot more views if I came on here and did some kind of sensationalized conspiracy theory or tout some miracle cure that you can find in your backyard but I'm not dr. oz this problem is too big and the stakes are too high too much human potential is being lost every single day if you know someone that's struggling with addiction buy them some narcan and take them out to dinner I know it can be heartbreaking it can be frustrating but it might be the best thing you can do to save their life and if you're struggling with addiction check in the links below to find a treatment service location near you or call their helpline at 1 800 662 help now this is the part of the video where I normally have an incredibly clever segue into the sponsor message but I'm not even gonna try today today's video is brought to you by brilliant orgs I thought about doing something about like you know being addicted to knowledge but it's not appropriate brilliant org is an online learning platform it teaches you how to think like a scientist just throwing you know facts and figures at you they help you work through the process so you can figure it out on your own helps you to learn a little bit better and it's super powers your knowledge base where you move forward and apply that to other things in your life a good place to start on brilliant is there's a science essentials course and it's a good idea to start there because these problems get complicated real quick you 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some new cool new people that have joined I got to murder their names real quick with guy governor manic Jim Muir in Wilfred al Dominguez Merrick Belsky Elin Capone Pier Punk Laurie Collier just engaged buck know the fundamentals and Alex ray thank you guys so much if you'd like to join them get access to early videos and extra stuff that other people don't get to see you can go to patreon.com/scishow answers with Joe please like and share this video if you liked it and please do share it with people who might have an interest in this subject or might have issues with this subject it's a very important thing and if this is your first time here maybe check out this video Google thinks you'll like that one and if you do you can watch some others maybe subscribe because I comeback of videos just like this every Monday all right thanks again for watching you guys go out have an eye-opening week and I'll see you on Monday love you guys take care

Channel: Joe Scott

Views: 346,444

Keywords: answers with joe, the opioid crisis, opioids, oxycodone, oxycontin, crossroads of america, montgomery county ohio, dayton ohio, heroin, heroin addiction, opioid addiction, addiction, dopamine, opioid receptors

Id: LwpZaVaq7tI

Length: 15min 5sec (905 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 05 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

My brother had a minor surgery recently. For the two week recovery I think he took a few tylenols and said the pain was minimal.

He didn't take a single oxy out of the 40 prescribed by the surgeon. Is it just me, or is it incredibly irresponsible to prescribe that many opiates to an 18 year old in the midst of an opiate crisis?

[u/[deleted]]

I am massive amount of pain every day. I started taking heroin because doctors would not help me with my pain. I finally got help off a doctor now. am off it now. but my story is not the only one, everyone that I took it was because they were still in pain and doctors were not giving them the meds they need.

I ended up having atypical cystic fibrosis, was not from addiction