The Pacific Northwest, and Seattle in particular, has been under the thumb of a massive heroin epidemic for decades.
Spurred on by the ever-increasing scourge of prescription opioid abuse, heroine use has skyrocketed all over America. Suburban areas have been hit particularly hard as doctors continue to push addictive painkillers on their patients due to financial pressures from the Big Pharmaceutical lobby. Now, these doctor-prescribed opioids are becoming wildly expensive on the black market, and the droves of Americans who are addicted to them are turning to the cheaper, and much more dangerous, heroin to get their fix.
Seattle, recognizing addiction as a mental health issue and not as a legal matter, has taken the initiative of treating addicts as opposed to criminalizing them.
“Officials in Seattle and King County, Washington, are working to find funding and locations to build two supervised injection facilities that will allow heroin addicts to shoot up without any fear of punishment and under the supervision of state-sponsored medical professionals. Once constructed, the facilities will be the first of their kind in the United States.
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