The Average Heroin User Is The Opposite Of What You Think

"Contrary to what researchers reported 50 years ago, today's average first-time heroin user isn't a 16-year-old male of color. She's actually much more likely to be a 23-year-old white woman. This, researchers conclude in a study published today in JAMA Psychiatry, represents "a marked shift in the demographics of heroin users seeking treatment over the past several decades."

According to the study, caucasian women and men have embraced prescription pills as their drug of choice. But heroin, which is much cheaper, eventually becomes more attractive. This means the drug once considered a "first opioid of abuse" is now more widely viewed as a last resort — and a popular one at that. Notably, heroin use in women has "increased from what was a very small percentage of about 20 percent back in the '50s to about 52 percent of the current population [of heroin users]," says lead study author and Washington University neuropharmacologist Theodore Cicero."* The Young Turks hosts Ana Kasparian and Dave Rubin (The Rubin Report) break it down.

*Read more here from Arielle Duhaime-Ross / The Verge: