Heroin Taking Heroes

The world was shocked and saddened yesterday to hear the news of the death of renowned actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.  He was reportedly found dead in his apartment with a needle in his arm, and many bags of heroin scattered throughout the apartment, indicating a drug overdose, even though an offical autopsy has not been completed.

Unfortunately, these instances of celebrity drug overdose are not uncommon, and seem to be increasing as of late.  This past July, Cory Monteith, an actor on the popular show "Glee", was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver due to a drug and alcohol overdose.

These two incidents are just a microcosm of a growing problem of the increasing heroin use across the country.  According to The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the number of Americans who had used heroin in the past year had risen from 373,000 in 2007 to 669,000 in 2012.  That means that in those five years, heroin use in the U.S. doubled.

The increase in numbers seems to be related to an increase of how easy it is to obtain the substance, the increased purity of heroin, the lowered price of it, and influence of a Mexican drug cartel pushing heroin into the United States.  Whatever the true causes are, I believe that this is a serious problem and that the United States needs to take a serious approach at trying to help reduce these numbers.  

What do you think are the reasons for these increases?  What measures would you take to solve the problem?