Addiction is swift.
One-third of people who use heroin become addicted within one to 12 months, a new study shows. It’s estimated that 300 to 520 people start using heroin each day in the United States alone.
“Earlier studies counted heroin dependence cases from the time someone begins using throughout their many years of use,” says senior author James Anthony, an epidemiologist at Michigan State University. “Our study focused on the first 12 months after first heroin use.”
For the study in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers reviewed data from between 2002 and 2016 from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, or NSDUH, which tracks drug use in the United States.