AMERICA - 'This is Your Nation on Drugs'

"Why more Americans are getting high — and overdosing — on heroin" PBS Newshour 2/3/2014

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  The sudden, shocking death of Oscar wing actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has brought fresh attention to the source of the addiction that apparently killed him, heroin.  The use of the drug has been on the rise in states like Maryland, where 37 deaths have been reported since September, and in Vermont, where the governor devoted his state of the state address to the topic.

But its use is spreading across the nation.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour):  Heroin may not be the most commonly used illegal drug, but a national survey shows its use has doubled since 2007.  We look at the changing faces and places of addiction, as well as the reasons for it, with Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the nation’s so-called drug czar, and Sam Quinones, an author and reporter at The Los Angeles Times.  He is currently writing a book on the recent heroin surge in the U.S.