© Jonny Ashcroft
In 2010, a dentist extracted my wisdom teeth, told me to gargle with salt water, and sent me home with a prescription for a Costco-sized bottle of hydrocodone pills. During the procedure, she knocked me out with propofol - the same drug that killed Michael Jackson - and afterward I felt no pain. After a few hours, I popped one hydrocodone, more out of politeness than need. Weeks later, I still felt fine, but I popped two more, just to see what it was like. Hydrocodone's dreamy, pain-dulling effect was impressive: I bit my cheek hard enough to draw blood, and it didn't hurt at all. But the pills made me woozy. I then put the remaining 57 or so of them into my medicine cabinet, and I have no idea what happened to them after that. Lost in a move, I guess.
Heroin epidemics don't come and go randomly, like the McRib. They have clearly identifiable causes - and in this case, by far the largest cause is doctor-prescribed pills. Every year since 2007, doctors have written more than 200 million prescriptions for opioid painkillers. (Consider that there are 240 million adults in the country.) And about four in five new heroin addicts report that they got addicted to prescription pills before they ever took heroin.
Comment: Mainstream science finally admits they got it all wrong:
From the Heart: Saturated fat is not the major issue
Consequences of replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates or Ω-6 polyunsaturated fats: The dietary guidelines have it wrong