The recent death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman has shed light on what appears to be a new heroin epidemic in America.

Heroin use is on the wane in Britain. The battle against a drug that blighted many impoverished areas in the 1980s and 1990s appears to be won. To a large extent young people have turned their back on a substance that so visibly damaged the previous generation. In the UK’s narcotic marketplace, low quality heroin is struggling to compete against an array of cheap, illicit market prescription medicines and bargain basement alcohol. But across the Atlantic, heroin is making a comeback.

Smack is back but not here (PDF)

Additional keywords: USA / oxycontin / painkillers