Heroin Addiction

Heroin is a very serious drug problem in America today. Heroin is an extremely dangerous and powerful opiate. It is derived from the poppy plant. This powdered, white, crystalline substance is used by injecting, snorting or smoking it. More young people are doing heroin than ever before. It has been estimated there are over 250,000 people currently addicted to heroin today, in this country alone. Recent studies suggest a shift from injecting heroin to snorting or smoking because of increased purity and the misconception that these forms are safer. Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seedpod of the Asian poppy plant. Heroin usually appears as a white or brown powder. Street names for heroin include “smack,” “H” or “junk.” Other names may refer to types of heroin produced in a specific geographical area, such as “Mexican black tar.”

Heroin Addiction
With regular heroin use, tolerance develops. This means the abuser must use more heroin to achieve the same intensity of effect. As higher doses are used over time, physical dependence and addiction develop. With physical dependence, the body has adapted to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms may occur if use is reduced or stopped. Withdrawal, which in regular abusers may occur as early as a few hours after the last administration, produces drug craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps, cold turkey, kicking movements, and other symptoms. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 48 and 72 hours after the last dose and subside after about a week. Sudden withdrawal by heavily dependent users who are in poor health is occasionally fatal, although heroin withdrawal is considered less dangerous than alcohol or barbiturate withdrawal. Heroin abuse is making a big comeback in the U.S. It quickly destroys the addicted person's health and finances. And, of course, dramatically impacts the people around them. Abusing heroin starts off with the euphoria of the initial pleasure. It soon turns into a nightmare of cataclysmic proportions. Heroin addiction can be found at every economic level, age and social standing. Once considered the drug mainly of poorer urban dwellers, heroin addiction has found its way in to the adolescent world as well as many affluent segments of the U.S. population.

Effects of Heroin Addiction and Use
Heroin addiction is associated with serious health conditions, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and, particularly in users who inject the drug, infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. The short-term effects of heroin addiction appear soon after a single dose and disappear in a few hours. After an injection of heroin, the user reports feeling a surge of euphoria (“rush”) accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Mental functioning becomes clouded due to the depression of the central nervous system. Long-term effects of heroin addiction appear after repeated use for some period of time. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulites, and liver disease. Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin’s depressing effects on respiration. Heroin abuse during pregnancy and its many associated environmental factors (e.g., lack of prenatal care) have been associated with adverse consequences including low birth weight, an important risk factor for later developmental delay. In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin may have additives that do not readily dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. The Drug Abuse Warning Network* lists heroin/morphine among the four most frequently mentioned drugs reported in drug-related death cases.

Reprinted: the National Institute of Drug Abuse