Significantly damaged an isisheld building. The u. S. Military has conducted a total of 115 air strikes against isis in iraq. This comes as secretary of state john kerry has written a strongly worded oped in the New York Times calling for more nation nations to help the u. S. Fighting isis. A much fuller response is demanded from the world. No civilized country should shirk its responsibility to help stamp out this disease. As concern over russias actions in ukraine continues to grow, were hearing a frightening warning from one of the top european leaders meeting in belgium today. He says russia is nearing a, quote, point of no return in ukraine. Meanwhile, a cnn team in the port city of maria paul saw ukraine kran forces stre thernt evening defensive positions on the outskirts of the city, reenforcing checkpoints, digging trenches along roads leading toward the russian border. This a day after russians foreign minister denied accusations that they crossed into ukraine despite these nato satellite images that appear to show otherwise. In missouri the fallout continues from questionable Police Actions in the aftermath of Michael Browns death. Another officer retired. You may remember st. Louis county Police Officer dan page from that video youre watching right now that sure faced watching him ranting about president obama as women as many other americans. Page was also seen pushing cnns don lemon during protests in ferguson earlier this month. Standing here all day. Get out of the way. Lets go. Lets go. Thats whats happening here. So people are here lets go. You can see whats happening. We got rights. Weve been standing here all day. They told us to come here. I cant move. A lieutenant, you see him here, he threatened and pointed an Assault Rifle at protesters during the protests. He also retired this week. The third officer in a nearby city was fired after making what he his police chief called very inappropriate Facebook Comments about the protests. For the rest of this hour, we want to focus on a crisis usually not in the headlines, drug as diks. A disease that has grown into a deadly fix for so many addicts. Prescription pill killers, americas newest drug epidemic. Hate to say theyre as american as apple pie, but they are. Theyre not going anywhere. Reporter its growing at an alarming rate, becoming the drug of choice for the younger generation. When did you first notice a problem with your son . In junior high school. Reporter experts say its leading to an explosion of heroin use across the country. How often do you do heroin now . Several times a day. Reporter over the next hour well ride along with police in massachusetts who have seen so many overdoses the state has declared a Public Health emergency. Got a visual on the guy thats selling. Reporter well meet a woman who became so addicted she would meet drug dealers while her grandchildren were in the car. Did you care who was around . Nope. Never worried . I was thinking about one thing and that was heroin. Reporter and discuss what it takes to beat addiction with former broadcaster and recovering addict, pat obrien. This story that youre about to hear shows how addiction can strike anyone. A denver woman found herself hooked on heroin on a road leading to an early grave. She was a mom and a grandmother and she tells the chilling story of going out to score drugs sometimes with her grandkids. Heres cnns anna cabrera. This park is where you would pick up . This is it. How often . Probably twice a week. Reporter cynthia scuto was an all american mom of eight with a deep, dark secret. Did you care who was around . Nope. Never worried . I was thinking about one thing, and that was heroin. Reporter hooked on heroin for nearly a decade. In the beginning it was a feel good. At the end, it was black. Reporter it started innocently enough. She had pain in her hip, scar tissue perhaps from multiple csections. A doctor prescribed oxycontin. But in just two weeks, sciutto wassed a dited. By the im i got to the other doctor she said youre taking enough for three adult men. Are doctors too quick to prescribe a painkiller . Some of them. Reporter he says what happened to scudo is not uncomm uncommon. It acts on the same parts of the brain that cause reenforcement, they cause euphoria. Reporter but heroin is much cheaper. One oxycontin can cost 80 on the street. 100 bucks worth of heroin could last scudo up to three days. Scudo crisscrossed colorado to meet with drug dealers, at park, strip malls, sometimes with her grandchildren in the car. So this is a good place to pick up because youve got sides of houses here, fences. Reporter this mom and grandmom in her mid 40s at the time didnt shoot heroin like some addicts do, she smoked it. I would drive with my knee, hold the foil in one hand, straw in my life, lighter in the other, and i would be driving down i70 going 65 miles an hour smoking heroin. Reporter driven by the drugs for nine years. Scudo thought she was destined to die a drug addict until a wakeup call one day when she looked in the mirror. I was a skeleton. I had this lovely green glow going, so i knew my liver was shutting down. The skin was hanging literally hanging off my body. Something about that moment when i saw myself triggered something in my head. Home away from home. Whats going through your mind . Chaos, hope. For the first time in a long time. Thats what was happening when you first got here . Yeah. I knew i couldnt do it by myself and i didnt know how to do it. Reporter scudo was in rehab for 33 days. This was her intake picture. I threw up every 15 minutes. I would have to live in the shower with the water temperature 120 degrees to burn the skin to not feel the pain in my back. Reporter the physical withdrawal was just the first hurdle. Scudo has worked through a 12step recovery. Its been over three years. No relapses. And scudo, now 55 and a grandmother of 18, has a new appreciation for life. The only way im going to stay clean and sober is to remember where i came from. Anna cabrera with that report. Coming up, broadcaster pat obrien shares his personal struggle with addiction and his remarkable recovery. Plus, marijuana is often called a gateway drug. But a new study says it may actually keep people from trying more dangerous alternatives. When i had my first migraine, i was lucky. That sounds crazy, i know. But my mom got migraines, so she knew this would help. Excedrin migraine starts to relieve my pain in 30 minutes. Plus, sensitivity to light and sound, even nausea. Excedrin migraine works. With a new00 volkswagen turbo. Reward card why are we so obsessed with turbo . Because we like giving you power, but we also like giving you fuel efficiency. 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In fact, Prescription Drug abuse in the country has risen so dramatically the cdc now classifies it as an epidemic. I want to bring in carl hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and in atlanta were joined by dr. Ford vox. Carl, i want to start with you. Were seeing that overall drug use is down. We were talking about this from the 80s definitely but youre seeing Prescription Drug abuse increase. Why is that . Well, when we think about Prescription Drug abuse and drug use, the thing that we measure is people who have used the drug in the past 30 days. The you look at 2002 and you look at now, the rates havent changed that much. But if you start before 2002 it certainly has increased. One of the reasons that it has increased probably because people were smarter. I mean, the fact is, with Prescription Drugs, you know what youre getting. Whereas, street drugs you dont know what youre getting. So thats not necessarily a bad thing. So dr. Vox, what do you think . He says people are smarter. Theyre able to know what theyre getting maybe they wouldnt know whats in elicit street drug. What do you think about that . Part of it may be that people are smarter but a large part of the problem is that physicians really have been dumber over recent years. We have seen an explosion in the prescription of opiod pain medications, another addictive medications as part of an overall plan that were going to stamp out pain all together. Theres been a campaign called pain is the fifth vital sign and we saw a resurgence of boom really in the prescription of these medications starting in the 1990s, rising to the 2000s. And we have created this problem to a large extent thats often easier to prescribe a pill than the root problems of why people want to take the pills. How easy is it for people to get their hands on Prescription Drugs . Its extremely easy and studies indicate that over well over half of these medications are coming either directly from the physicians hands or being handed over by one Family Member to perhaps another friend freely. Physicians have a large responsibility here to recognize that we are the root cause to a large extent of the prescription pill epidemic. And we are starting to pull back, as we should, but that is creating some problems in and of itself. This has to be treated as part of a comprehensive pain program. And really we got to start out with the right diagnosis. Over 100 million americans are in some form of chronic pain. I think that drives a lot of this. I just want to make sure that we understand. Some people say its extremely easy for some people, not everyone. Obviously we want our physicians to be responsible, but i dont want us to get hysterical here such that people dont get the medications that they need. Oftentimes when you have these pseudocrisis, what we have is we have some bad policy that we implement and then we make it more restrictive for people who actually need these medications to control their pain. So i want to make sure that we dont get too craw zi here. Yeah. And some physicians ive heard that, anecdotally, some f physicians are very carefully, whereas others are not. Hydro codoen. According to the International Narcotics control board americans are consuming 99 of it worldwide. So you look at a statistic like that, why is that . We probably consume so much of that because other countries or other people around the country around the world are consuming other types of opiods. When you go to places like switzerland, germany, those places like that, they prescribe things like heroin in some cases. The fact that we prescribe we take 99 of the hydro codone is not surprising. But hiydro codone containss s met fin. That becomes a problem that we fail to talk about. Stick around. Well talk a little more after the break. We will be examining how more states are seeing a shift from people using costly Prescription Drugs in favor of cheaper alternative forms of heroin. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 Million People. [ alex ] transamerica helped provide a lifetime of retirement income. So i can focus on what matters most. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Become a drug addict but its a fate that happens to far too many people. Sometimes it starts innocently with the legal prescription for pain pills but police are seeing firsthand how a doctors good intentions can lead to a constant craving for one of the most dangerous street drugs, heroin. Heres cnns deb feyerick. Coming upside street behind where you are at . Yeah. Reporter its just after dinner on an ordinary thursday night in chelsea, massachusetts. Got the guy, the sell sxwler the buyer, the buyer is i guess he texted them to say hes on the way. Reporter lieutenant david bets and his narcotics officers are gathering intelligence on a controlled drug deal. What do you buy . How much is it . Five bags. Five bags of heroin. Reporter chelsea is north of boston just over the bridge across the mystic river. Like many other cities and towns across america, police here have seen the demand for heroin skyrocket. Drugs are you hate to say theyre as american as apple pie, but theyre here. Near not going anywhere. Reporter the growing epidemic is fueled in part by people increasingly hooked on prescription painkiller, people looking to heroin as a cheaper way to get high. People like marie who grew up here and took her first hit two decades ago at age 16. We agreed to protect her identity. How often do you do heroin now . Several times a day. Like right now ive already done two 40 packages today. Do you have one supplier . Do you have multiple suppliers . Multiple. You always need multiple because sometimes one aint around so you need your backup dealer. Reporter police say the majority drugs at 60 are sold in and around the public park by chelsea town hall. An endless flow of traffickers, suppliers, sellers, and buyers. How do they find their way here into a place like chelsea . They almost have like a network of runners or suppliers and theyll send them out, like delivery guys in a pizza store. You go to chelsea for the day. You go to another city for the day. They will basically network like that. Whats the most number of times somebody has been arrested . That ive seen . Yeah. Well over 200. Reporter back at Chelsea Police headquarters the Evidence Room is nearly filled to capacity. These are all heroin cases and cocaine cases that weve worked on. Twist is its just the corner of a sandwich bag that they will take. Can i hold this up . Go ahead. Reporter a twist of heroin that costs a fraction of a single prescription painkiller. This batch of hair wayne is worth 300. Do you have the same amount of oxycontin or any of these drugs, what would it be . Well over 3,000. Reporter police say that about half of the people arrested here in chelsea for either selling or buying heroin, theyre not even from here, they dont live in chelsea. Theyre coming from other cities and towns. We know certain communities are a lot more affluent and will ask them, how did you end up here from, you know, a suburb of Million Dollar homes and they will say they got hooked on opia opiates, ran out of money. Theyre not available there like they are here. Reporter and though she grew up in Chelsea Marie says she wants to move first chance she gets hoping to run from the addiction she calls a life sentence. You odd five times. Did you ever once think, why did i wake up . Yes. Every single time. Every time i woke up pissed off. Im like, im such a i cant even die right. I would rather be in the ground than continue with this. Headed up there now. Reporter endless cycle of drugs in small towns trying to stem the tide. I woke up tomorrow and do it all again. My panel back with me now. Columbia professor carl hart as well as dr. Ford vox. Dr. Vox, we just saw debs report there. Do you believe that prescription pills are a gateway to other harder drugs . At this point its not really a matter of belief. We have the statistics. We know that over 80 of people who go on to heroin first have their exposure to an opiod currently, it used to be quite the reverse, well over 80 was commonly introduced first to heroin back in the 1960s and 70s. So we have to a large extent medicalized this epidemic. What do you think . I see you wanting to react to this. Im just trying to hold it together. Whenever i heard the term gateway drug it just its difficult to hold it together because on one hand, the vast majority of people who are using these drugs, the opiates, prescription opiates, do not go on to use heroin. Thats a fact. When we Start Talking about gateway drug, this is not a gateway but who is it a gateway for . Someone with a predisposition or they already have a Mental Illness and theyre medicating . Is that what it is . Youre getting at the real issues here. When we think about someone going on to use heroin, people go on to use heroin for a variety of reasons whether they have cooccurring psychiatric illness, whether they are engaged in other sort of petty crimes or other sort of behaviors but theres a variety of reasons. And to blame Prescription Medications for heroin use, later heroin use, thats overly simplistic and actually is dangerous because it do