What is Heroin and how is it used?

Heroin, which is typically sold as a white or brownish powder that is “cut” with sugars, starch, powdered milk, or quinine is a highly addictive drug processed from Morphine. This naturally occurring illegal drug is extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants.

Because Heroin leads to tolerance very soon, the users are at a risk of addiction right from the initial days of use. Tolerance means the users need to intake more and more drugs to have the same effect.

Types of Intake

High quality Heroin can be smoked or snorted and therefore is more popular with the new users since it helps eliminate the fear associated with injection use. Whereas, an impure version of Heroin is usually dissolved, diluted, and injected into veins, muscles, or under the skin. It can also be mixed with water and consumed. Some people adopt a practice called speed balling in which Heroin is mixed with Crack or Cocaine for an amplified effect.

Various types of administering Heroine

Injecting The purest form of Heroine is in powder form. It cannot be injected as it is. It needs to be liquified before injecting. The users usually place Heroin in a spoon and mix it with citric acid and heat to obtain the liquified form of the drug. Most people prefer the ritual of injecting Heroin because it gives the desired euphoric effect within 15 seconds. Some people will place a tightly rolled up ball of cotton or a cigarette filter into the spoon and let it absorb the liquid. They will then draw the liquid into a syringe by filtering the liquid and inject it. This process is to eliminate impurities in Heroin.

Smoking Heroin can be smoked in a pipe or as a regular cigarette after mixing with Marijuana. In a process known as chasing the dragon. Heroin’s smoke can be inhaled through a straw. When it is smoked, people will typically feel its peak effects in 10 to 15 minutes. Similar to how carrying, lighting, and holding a cigarette becomes a part of daily routine for tobacco users, smoking Heroin and carrying the related equipment can also become very ritualistic when smoking Heroin frequently.

Snorting Some people take Heroin by snorting it in the belief that it is less dangerous than the other two. Well, this is not true. A study found it is actually highly likely for people who start by snorting Heroin to begin injecting it as soon as their tolerance builds. It typically takes about five minutes to feel the effects of Heroin after snorting it. Heroin is absorbed into the nasal and throat tissues with insufflation, then it passes into the bloodstream, where it quickly makes its way through the blood-brain barrier and then into the brain. In the brain, heroin is chemically converted into morphine by reacting with opioid receptors.

Consequences of Heroin Addiction

There is no safer way to use Heroin. The consequences remain the same whichever way it is administered. Heroin is the most dangerous of all the illegal drugs in the sense that it forms swift addiction patterns and results in withdrawal symptoms even with minor gaps in usage. Eventually, the drug becomes the primary focus of the individual’s life deteriorating his life in numerous ways.

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