Karen Schoemer

About the author: Karen Schoemer is a senior writer at Newsweek. She previously wrote a monthly music column for Interview and Mirabella magazines.

Heroin is becoming increasingly fashionable—especially among young people—for a variety of reasons. One reason for heroin's rising popularity is that the drug is more widely available, cheaper and purer than in the past. Another reason for its popularity is that heroin can now be snorted or smoked, methods of consumption that appeal to casual drug users who mistakenly believe they won't get addicted unless they shoot up. One of the primary reasons that heroin's reputation has soared, however, is the rise of heroin use among icons in the fashion and music industries. Although there have always been heroin addicts in the rock music...