Heroin Addiction

Heroin addiction, which, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Health, can cause serious health problems, including fatal overdosing, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and infections diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Heroin, processed from morphine (a naturally occurring substance extracted from the Asian poppy plant), is highly addictive. It depresses the central nervous system, clouding the user's mental functioning. Heroin usually appears as a white or brown powder, with street names that include “smack,” “H,” “skag,” and “junk.”

The short-term effects of heroin abuse appear shortly after a single dose and disappear in a few hours. After a heroin injection, the user reports feeling a surge of euphoria, accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heaviness in the extremities. Following this initial rush, the user goes "on the nod," a state of alternating wakefulness and drowsiness.

Long-term effects of heroin appear after repeated use. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses (pus-filled pockets inside inflamed, infected tissue), cellulitis (a bacterial infection of the skin), 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.

Reports from SAMHSA's 1995 Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), which collects data on drug-related hospital emergency room episodes and drug-related deaths from 21 metropolitan areas, rank heroin as the second highest drug involved in drug-related deaths. From 1990 to 1995, the number of heroin-related episodes doubled. Between 1994 and 1995, there was a 19 percent increase in heroin-related emergency department episodes.

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