Sunday, July 13, 2008

Sixty thousand heroin addicts can’t be wrong.

My good friend David Simon has a new miniseries premiering tonight on HBO – “Generation Kill.” It’s about the Iraq war.

But I want to share a Voice of America video uploaded on Friday. It happens to revisit one of Simon’s earlier subjects... the heroin addicts of Baltimore.

An estimated 10 percent of that city’s population is addicted to heroin.

10 comments:

odocoileus said...

It's a personal tragedy for the woman and all who love her, true.

But speaking as a PG County boy myself, I want to know:

Who's payin' to hit that?!

Anonymous said...

60,000!! OMG, that's nuts if true...

Anonymous said...

I was born and raised in Baltimore. Had an extremely happy childhood there and received an outstanding education there.

My parents have since left the city and live in the county.

It's very painful to see the deterioration.

LISA VAZQUEZ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
LISA VAZQUEZ said...

Hello there!

That black tar heroin is DEATH...

There are junkies everywhere...

It's worse than Harlem was when Blue Magic was all over the place...

No city will recover from the heroin tornado unless they take systematic steps to deal with the addicted population...too many city officials think that the addicts will just die off and that will solve the problem.....the addiction problem for this city will not DIE it will only multiply.

We must press city leaders for action throughout this nation!

Thank you for blowing the trumpet!

{raised revolutionary fist}
Lisa

Destruction said...

Through the Grass, Acid, Coke, Crack, Meth, etc...Drug scenes, Baltimore was still known for it's Heroin problem..... But 60,000 heroin addicts? I ain't buying it. I doubt that there are 60,000 drug USERS in the City Proper. Two years ago I saw an article that quoted a 40,000 addict figure. Wow....2 years later, and it's 60,000.

Even better, here's an article from the Sun, that quotes the 60,000 number....8 years ago. But it refers to drug addicts.

http://www.geocities.com/grantorino.geo/heroin072900.htm?20088

My 2 fave parts of this piece are this one:

"Baltimore is estimated to have at least 60,000 drug addicts - roughly 10 percent of the population - and police say drugs are a factor in eight of every 10 city homicides."

60,000 drug, not heroin, drug addicts. Repeat it enough, and it becomes true....'WMD...Ive them WMD's....not the drug, the ones that got lost in Iraq'.

And my other fave quote:

"Norris and O'Malley said, they believe the drug epidemic will be under control - but certainly not gone - in two to three years"

Wow....so after 8 years I'm sure that Baltimore is way way way down that path to Enlightenment....and somebody shld promote that mayor to Gov'nor....for cleaning up the problem.

What I do know to be true is that somebody's pockets have been getting extremely FAT from all that drug enforcement and drug treatment money that's been Funneled into the city over the years.


....and odo...I feel u bruh.

Undercover Black Man said...

^ Different media report it different ways, Des. WBAL and public television have said "60,000 heroin addicts."

I remember about 10 years ago hearing the figure of 50,000 i.v. drug users in Baltimore. (I think I heard that on "60 Minutes.") Figure always stuck with me... like, "You could fill a stadium"...

Destruction said...

I looked at the Census data:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/24/2404000.html

Let's assume the Addicts are all between 18 and 65. That population would be 400,000 out of the 630,000 Total. So the quoted stats mean that 15 percent of the adult population in Balitmore City are Heroin Addicts up to age 65...or about

ONE OUT OF EVERY SEVEN?????

My God how does the City Function?

Even when I factor in the BIG difference between people in Baltimore and people in D.C....STILL...........

Unknown said...

If we talk about Symptom of Heroin Addiction then many symptoms can be found. In this addiction people are mentally very disturbed. There is also change in their behavior.

http://www.addiction-treatments.com/

Unknown said...

As an ex-heroin addict;

its a tragic lifestyle and unfortunately you yourself are not in the proper state of mind to break the cycle.

it greatly pains me to hear this struggling addict say, "well eventually ill probably wind up in a rehab somewhere or... i don't know"

clearly a cry for help.
unfortunately rehab is a really expensive process.

however there is free hope in the rooms of AA/NA.

if u cant afford detox, just hit a meeting

ud be surprised as to the level of impact it can make in your life.