Some recent information and statistics from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA)

 The term opoid is medical for opium based.  We have found in our own observations that one of many avenues to heroin (an opoid) is prescription opoids like ocycontin and others mentioned below.  Kids will use available prescription drugs until they become unavailable or too expensive (an 80 mg oxycontin  can cost as much as 1$ per mg) If they have abused them to the point of developing a dependency which incidentally takes very little with this class of narcotic, they quite easily turn to less expensive and more effective drugs like heroin.

What are called opoid analgesics ( drugs like percodan, darvocet, viocodin, oxycontin, hydrocodone) and others, according to NIDA are being “diverted and abused at an alarming rate”.  

In a jaw dropping statement, NIDA estimates that 31.2 million…that’s right, more than 10% of the US population aged 12 and over in 2003 took the drug at least one time strictly for the feeling of it rather than its medical use.  NIDA goes on to say that this is an increase from the previous year of 1.5 million (a 4% increase in one year).   

In another shocker, NIDA states that in 2003, high school seniors, “abused opoids more than any other illicit drug except marijuana.”