Opioid use has long been a problem in the United States and heroin has shown to be particularly dangerous. Whereas the profile of heroin users changed throughout the 1900s, prior to the 1990s, most users were city-dwellers living on the fringes of the law. However, as the push began to make prescription opioids more available, this shift in policy seemingly resulted in a shift of the common profile of heroin users. We explore the nexus between prescription opioid and heroin abuse via in-depth interviews with 30 former drug users residing in a women’s halfway house in the Southern United States.
