Cheryl from Mountainside, N.J. who lost her son
It hijacks the brain and we need to arrest the addiction, not the person…to help stop the progression of the disease without stigmatizing the person as bad, but suffering from mental illness that addiction brings, by chemically altering the brains structure. The brain gets hijacked and wired only to seek what it now believes it lacks to be normal. The brain stops making serotonin and dopamine on its own and craves the opiates to feel well and not get sick. An addictive brain is a diseased brain and not a moral failure on the one suffering from addiction, but by a society/government that has failed morally to protect our citizens and loved ones from the profiteers of prescription drugs who have dirty hands in this epidemic.
We lost our morality and compass when we allowed profit over human lives. Stop the prescribing of these opiates to children/adults that are not in chronic pain. The FDA needs to be held accountable for their poor judgment of allowing these powerful opiates to be prescribed and for not stopping the many deaths this epidemic has caused by heroin addiction due to big pharma.
…My son died -- the unidentified young face of addiction that stopped Times Square the morning of April 12, 2013. He relapsed and fell into the subway and was electrocuted by the third rail. It was not suicide or anything other than another beautiful son/daughter losing their battle with addiction and the heartless society that shames them.