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Poverty and Drug Abuse

POVERTY AND DRUG ABUSE
Does one lead to the other?

Americans are divided over the causes of poverty and drug abuse. About half the public says the poor are not doing enough to help themselves out of poverty, and the other half says that circumstances beyond their control cause them to be poor, such as drugs. When asked what is the No. 1 cause of poverty, low-income Americans are much more likely to name drug abuse.

The reported factors contributing to substance abuse in rural America include poverty, unemployment, underemployment, and the isolation of rural areas. Substance abuse results in crime including buying and selling drugs, driving while intoxicated, and disorderly conduct, thefts, burglaries, robberies and assaults, as well as poor grades in school and other serious complications. These crimes generally occur because of the need for money to buy the drugs and support the habit. The victims are usually the middle and upper class of Americans due the lower class not having money. However, there is violence in the drug culture as well, the dealers assaulting the users because money owed and the abusers assaulting the dealers to steal the drugs.

Substance abuse has long been perceived to be a problem of the inner city. However, alcohol abuse has long been a problem in rural areas and illicit drugs have infiltrated towns of every size. Today, adults and young teens in rural areas are just as likely to abuse substances as those in larger metropolitan areas. The problems may be the same, but smaller communities have limited resources to deal with the consequences of substance abuse due primarily to financial limitations.

Some advocates against the theory that poverty breeds drug abuse state their rationalization on the fact that middle and upper class Americans abuse drugs. These classes of Americans can indeed go through life using drugs. However, sometimes these Americans fall into the lower poverty levels because of their dependency on drugs.

When it comes to drug abuse all classes of Americans have at least one common denominator. There are numerous reasons Americans use and abuse drugs. Some of reasons are boredom, dreams crushed, hope for the future, a perception that life has passed them by, and /or no way out of poverty as they were born in it. There are still other factors but all classes have at least one in common, escape from reality, so having this in mind, of the previously mentioned factors, which class of Americans believes they fit in more categories than the others, the lower class or poverty levels do.

I know of poverty stricken disabled individuals that have sold their medication for money to survive daily. There are drug dealers going around to people that get prescriptions and offer them 50 times what they purchased the medication for at the pharmacy. These prescription holders are people generally looking for money to have a better life or just make ends meet. The pill drug dealers are paying large amounts for the prescriptions but make a larger profit on the pills as they are generally sold one by one. For example, a person with a 120 pill per month prescription of oxycontin 80 milligram sells the entire prescription for $20.00 a piece. This comes to $2,400.00 for the prescription holder. The drug dealer sells each pill for $80.00 a piece. These comes to $9,600.00 minus the cost of pills relates to $7,200.00 profit. Do the pill dealers get this rich? No, not as a general rule they are not. The majority of pill dealers no matter how small or large are just as addicted as the ones they are selling to. However, in most cases that I see and have been reported in this county is simply the prescription holder sells their pills and waits for the next month’s doctor appointment so they can get their prescription to sell. The majority of the pill sellers are unemployed or underemployed before, during and after the selling of drugs.
What can be done with the prescription drug trade in poverty stricken communities? Can we arrest them all? No, that would be an arrogant pipe dream for all law enforcement agencies. This is a national epidemic and not just in our communities. No one can stop illegal activity that is so prevalent in rural America when it comes to illegal prescription sells. The pills are too readily given out. It takes more stringent controls of prescription pills by other than local law enforcement.

The cocaine, marijuana and other types of drug dealers are different. These types of dealers search high and low for individuals that need a release from reality. Generally, those in need of an escape from their life the most are low income Americans. Once someone tries these drugs most of the time they become addicted and their lives turn even more south in need of more escaping from reality.

One factor that all classes of Americans and the professionals agree on is better education opportunities and substance abuse prevention measures will decrease the substance abuse in all of America. We need to provide the young adults an alternative way of release and the pressures of being a teenager other than the easy way of doing drugs.This way we curb our generation’s substance abuse and make the future safer for the current young adults.

So the debate continues, does poverty breed drug abuse or does drug abuse breed poverty. My belief is that they both go hand in hand, but is more prevalent as a way of life and likely to occur in Small Town, USA.

Copyright 2007 by Darryl Chapman

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