That White Death

Long form report on [white] people who shoot up in Philly. One of the themes I've noticed is:

Mark got addicted to oxycodone after he was injured by an I.E.D. while on deployment in Iraq. A friend taught him to shoot up heroin because it was a lot cheaper than taking painkillers. And the heroin in Kensington was very cheap. As little as $5 a bag.

A suggestion: If a person is put on strong painkillers as a part of his medical care, then weaning the person off the medication should be a standard part of the process. If that means a week (or however long it usually takes) where the patient is in a care facility, then that should be done. If after having gone through the process, they decide to go get high then that's on them.

I also find it absolutely unacceptable that a person who has served in the military and been harmed while on duty, gets into a situation where they cannot afford the medication (assuming this part of the story to be true).

Also I think that perhaps the dosages are way too high. When I had a tooth extracted, I was given 4 large pills. I took one and I only took it when the pain got too much to bear. For the rest of the time I simply dealt with it. I'm no expert, so take my opinion with the requisite amounts of salt, but perhaps medication should be given per morphology and patients made to understand that pain will NOT be eliminated, only reduced. This could possibly prevent people from getting that "total high" that leads to Heroin.