Dear President,

Excuse me Mr/Mrs. President, I go to Lusher charter school, and I just want to say that I am so proud that you are the new president of the USA for the most part. You must be pretty happy that the super emotionally charged campaign that you put up that paved your way to this presidency has reached the end and it is glorious. I know that you will be able to make the hard decisions that will help make and keep the USA great. With this responsibility comes great power and I hope that you will try your best to make the right/ just decisions that the USA was founded on.

Lately I have been reading and because of the article, Heroin in the Heartland, I am starting to understand that, ultimately heroin is becoming more and more of a problem in the USA. The article takes a more in depth view on how heroin is spreading and who are the new consumers for this lucrative drug by telling the reader,”dealers, connected to Mexican drug cartels, are making huge profits by expanding to new, lucrative markets: suburbs all across the country. It's basic economics. The dealers are going where the money is and they are cultivating a new set of consumers: high school students, college athletes, teachers, and professionals.” The article gives information not only on the problem but where to start cracking down on, because now not just the average junkie is the one with a heroin or prescription drug problem it could now be any day unstereotypical, people like a teacher or a student in LSU.

Heroin may be a big problem in the U.S. but another big one is prescription drug abuse. prescription drugs are not only addictive, cost a lot, and causes erratic behavior, they also cause many physical health problems mainly for people ages 18-25. But it may even be worse than you think because they can also be deadly for many stated by a graph from the article Abuse of Prescription (Rx) Drugs Affects Young Adults Most,”In 2014, more than 1,700 young adults died from prescription drug (mainly opioid) overdoses.” But even that is not the worst thing that come out of people misusing prescription drugs because some of those are used in making cocaine and that cause more deaths because overdoses than the stand alone prescription drug overdoses in 2014. So, overall over 3400 people died because of prescription drugs being misused and that does not seem like the USA is doing the best they can to try to stop this outbreak.

I hope with the power you have now as the new president of the USA that you will try to extinguish the heroin and prescription drug abuse problems that have been pests to the USA to help many people that has yet to be attended to properly. For example in an article I read about, like many, a person who is struggling through her addiction, a 21 year old girl, named Ashley, was affected by heroin addiction and it has controlled her life, her money, and her health, as Ashley and a reporter stated in the article for abc News,”Ashley lives the life of a full-time junky” And also stated,” Her life is consumed by the multiple trips she takes into the city every day to get her fix, and a desperate search for the more than $100 a day she needs to pay for her addiction.” As showed by the articles information and with these quotes we know that her heroin addiction takes much of her daily income and much of her time but of all of that she still goes to buy more almost every day.

Some people may not think that heroin and prescription drug abuse is not a big concern in the USA but the majority would probably disagree once they heard the damaged it took on people and how it took people's lives. Many people have died from overdoses like the acclaimed actor Philip Seymour Hoffman that story’s been told in the article, Is Prescription Drug Abuse a Big Concern?, that said,”Philip Seymour Hoffman, have brought attention to a surge in heroin use and overdose deaths. After more than 20 years of sobriety, Hoffman reportedly began using heroin last year following a bout of abusing prescription drugs. The transition between prescription pill abuse and heroin is a problem addiction specialists have been focused on for years.” Because of his relapse after 20 years of not doing any illegal drugs he started down the path to his own death. You should think that this is a priority to try to get this stuff of the streets to better the overall health of the people and to stop meaningless deaths.

Sincerely, EM