and even marijuana meanwhile overseeing the production of illegal heroin with the drugs like oxycontin vicodin. that's a big question the short answer is it's big business i mean pharmaceutical companies make in credible amount of money the medications are legal so there is a combined investment to make sure that people are taking medications for a variety of ailments whether they need it long term or not it's really been a situation where people all across the country are taking medications for the long term and it's just it's all about the money. and i want to turn to you you know we used to be shocked to hear about celebrities dying from speedballs mixing of heroin and cocaine but now it's almost commonplace to hear about celebrities oh dean or even other people i mean i'm not i'm just saying celebrities an example here on some kind of prescription kok tell you that it's never addressed the same way as hard drugs are how much is the media to blame for the culture of acceptance. well the media is to blame and i just want to make another note we spend a lot of time in washington d.c. and one

let like if you're an oxycontin or vicodin user, you go to treatment and other than that, we leave you. we need something in the middle that says to the marijuana user, 17, smoking every day, that person won't necessarily qualify for treatment but that person needs something. without intervention, they're going to run into problems. i would say, you know, we should be reinvesting into the treatment system, take all the money we're wasting on incarcerating young black men and put that into the treatment system. that's one thing we all agree on, the war on drugs is a failure. the law response is wasteful. how do we begin to reprogram some of those dollars into a system that provides support and care for young people who are struggling. >> is your idea -- i'm trying to piece together what it would look like. someone who still wants marijuana to be illegal, doesn't want to see people getting arrested, you pay a civil fine, mandatory -- >> civil fines and education, there is a mind set years ago that mandatory treatment didn't work. it does. we now know that it does. it is not even so much

vicodin. and then moved on to oxycontin. and then it went to heroin. >> reporter: why vermont? one theory, higher prices in this rural area. that means bigger profits for dealers. nationwide, more people die of drug overdoses than from motor vehicle crashes. that's triple the number from 1990. as we discovered on a recent ride along with police in new jersey, heroin is cheap and readily available. >> heroin is much, much, cheaper than prescription medication. >> reporter: give me the ratio. >> a 30 milligram oxycodone pill, $30. an 80 milligram oxycontin, $80. a bag of heroin, $4. >> reporter: and now, a governor has joined the chorus of concern. america can no longer arrest its way out of its addiction to heroin. byron pitts, abc news, new york. >>> and tonight, for the first time, we are seeing dramatic images of a small plane crash last december in the waters off the coast of hawaii. you can see the plane about to hit the water. it's descending straight down to the ocean, crashes on the surface. we'll watch again because a passenger was recording video as it happened. within

. >> first use was percocet and vicodin and then it moved on to oxycontin and then it went to heroineverdose than motor vehicle crashes. that's triple the number from 1990. as we discovered on a recent ride-along with police in new jersey, heroine is cheap and readily available. >> it's much, much cheaper than prescription. >> reporter: give me the ratio. >> 30 milligram oxycontin, $30. 80 milligram oxycontin, $80. a bag of heroine, $40. >> reporter: a governor joined the chorus of concern. america can no longer arrest its way out of its diction to heroine. byron pitts, abc news. >>> thick fog is blamed for a massive pileup on a busy highway in idaho. the nasty chain reaction crash near boise involved 46 cars, trucks and suvs, including a flatbed loaded with huge logs and four tractor-trailers. ten people were injured but they're all expected to survive. one official called it a perfect storm of fog, icing and speeding. >>> meantime, the national weather service is working to confirm reports of several tornadoes along florida's atlantic coast. last night strong winds damaged about 30