Veterans Hooked on Heroin After VA Pain Pills

Veterans hooked on heroin struggle to find help
KRDO ABC 13 News
By: Bart Bedsole
Posted: Nov 03, 2016

A top VA pain management expert, Dr. Julie Franklin, recently testified to the House Committee On Veterans Affairs that almost 60% of veterans returning from the Middle East have some form of chronic pain requiring treatment.

A KRDO Newschannel 13 investigation found that 63,880 veterans were treated in 2015 for an opioid use disorder.

A KRDO Newschannel 13 investigation revealed that a large number of heroin addicts in America are veterans.

Not only has the VA health care system struggled to help them, but it may also be responsible for inadvertently creating the addictions in the first place.

Ross Armentor is recovering heroin addict who has been sober for three years this month.

Shortly after serving in Iraq in 2003, he was prescribed the powerful painkiller Percocet, which contains the opioid oxycontin.

He was suffering from a torm hamstring at the time.

Within a few months, he was addicted.
read more here