Heroin
Heroin, a powerful narcotic, acts upon the brain as a painkiller, increasing physical addiction and ongoing emotional dependence (Schaffer Library of…). Heroin has many challenging and highly risky effects on the user, all the more hazardous if overdosing is present. This extremely dangerous drug, heroin, will never cease being used, but may cease the existence of an individual.
Heroin is a painkilling drug that is made from the Papaverum Somniferum, also known as the opium poppy plant. All opiates are addictive painkillers. Heroin starts as a milky sap of the opium poppy. The sap is then dried and becomes a gum. After washing the gum, it becomes opium. Morphine and codeine are two painkilling alkaloids that opium contains. Morphine from opium can be advanced to produce diamorphine, which is the prescribed name for heroin (United Kingdom).
A British chemist discovered heroin in 1874. The trade name "heroin" originated from the new drug diacetylmorphine in 1898 when the Bayer Company in Germany began mass-producing the drug as a universal painkiller. Diacetylmorphine is the mixture of opium's main ingredient, morphine, with a common acid, acetic anhydride. During this time, pharmaceutical manufacturers sold heroin in apparent medicines as a cure for various diseases. An example of one would be infantile
respiratory ailments. In 1925, the League of Nations passed a law against the worldwide export of Heroin. In 1931, the policy stated that manufacturers could produce only enough heroin for legalized medical and scientific requirements (Schaffer Library of…).
Heroin is available in all major city areas in the United States. Heroin is recognized by other street names such as: "dope", "sm...
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... to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly
admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact
with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to
carry this message to alcoholics, and to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Steps: 1-7: Self-Maintenance
Steps: 8-12: Righting your relations with others and god
It’s very hard to be a heroin addict and have a normal, properly functioning life. Most of the times addicts cannot hold stable jobs, so there is not a stable income coming in, which in turn results in these individuals becoming homeless, or turning to criminal activity to support their drug use. It is not easy to maintain a healthy lifestyle when you struggle with an addiction. I’ve seen first hand with family members how quickly your life spirals out of control, and how hard it can be to get back on your feet once you’re addicted. If people using heroin are taking it intravenously, there are a number of risks that come with that as well. Unclean needles can cause people to contract HIV or Hepatitis, and other infectious diseases if they use dirty puddles of water to cook their drugs. The veins of heroin addicts can also become damaged. On top of all that, if these addicts aren’t using clean needles, abscesses can form wherever they’re injecting drugs into the body, which can be very dangerous. For all of the reasons above, the cons of taking heroin certainly outweigh the
Chasing Heroin is a two-hour documentary that investigates America’s heroin crisis. The documentary details the opioid epidemic and how police offers, social workers, and public defenders are working to save the lives of addicts. The documentary explores the origins and continuing causes behind the heroin epidemic such as; massive increases in opioid painkillers starting at the turn of the century, Mexican drug cartels who are now rooted in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, and the cheap price of heroin when compared to prescription pain killers. A program in Seattle called LEAD is explored. This program channels addicts into a system that points them toward help (rehab, temporary housing, counseling, methadone treatment) instead of prison
Heroin, the drug that has been around for centuries has been making a come into American street. It popularity is growing to the size coke and crack had in the eighties. This time how ever its happening in the rural parts of America. Instead of the the cities like most drug out breaks.
In the YouTube video titled “Heroin Dangers – Mayo Clinic” the affects of heroin are explained, it is derived from morphine and is highly addictive. It can be smoked or injected; when it’s injected it can be very dangerous. It enters the brain and then stimulates the brain to release dopamine. The high will last about a thirty minutes on average. The problem is that it also can be contaminated with dangerous substances. There have been deaths in several states because of the contaminants that have been found in heroin. The respiratory system can be slowed down which can cause the heart to stop and can lead to death. After heroin usage there is a very quick spike of dopamine levels, so this is a reinforcement for the user that will cause
The wonder-drug of the early nineteenth century was finally being recognised as a dangerously addictive substance, although the interests of imperial traders kept it legal for another five decades, until the Dangerous Drugs Act was passed in 1920. This Act made it illegal to possess opiates without a doctor’s prescription.
Heroin can be taken in three different ways. It can be snorted, smoked, and injected. Heroin can take minutes or even seconds to kick in, no matter the form though. The snorted form is a chopped up form of it’s original state and looks like pale brown dust. The smoked form is in rolled, marijuana-like joints. The injected form is a liquid and is made with mixing the heroin with warm water and putting it into a syringe. Taking the injected form is the most addictive way to take the drug because it hits faster and is put directly into your bloodstream. Many get addicted after the first try. Heroin itself is not the only thing dangerous about it, diseases can be spread by users who use the same
The dependence on hard core drugs in the United States is on a continuous climb. Heroin is the leading reason for this. Considered by many to be the hardest of hard drugs, thus making heroin a very popular choice among drug addicts. Heroin is a narcotic produced from the opium of the poppy plant and poses a serious risk to society. Since it could be injected, snorted or smoked heroin also causes health complications and the possibility of death. Sadly, none of that matters to an addict because they only want their next fix. A century ago the doctors who developed heroin were only hoping for a way to help patients, they were unaware their new found medicine would lead to decades of addiction, abuse, health problems and even death for many.
Heroin was originally synthesized in 1874 by a man named C.R Alder Wright. Created as a solution to opium, a drug that had plagued many American households. It was originally produced for medical purposes evidently becoming highly addictive. Heroin “... was originally marketed as a non-addictive substance” (“History of Addiction”) which inevitably increased its popularity. It became especially popular in places of poverty. Heroin became a solution to struggle. So common it was almost as if heroin was a prescribed medicine for hardship. Known as “[a] treatment of many illnesses and pain” (“A brief history of addiction”) but later revealed that it caused more harm than good. Being so easily accessible it became immensely common among musicians.
Heroin is made of resin from poppy plants, which is then refined to make morphine, and further refined to make heroin.
It is the most important pharmacologically active constituent of opium, the resin copied from the dried juice of the opium poppy. It was first established into clinical practice more than 200 years ago. It is the prototype opioid drug, whose analgesic and rewarding effects are mediated by activating opioid receptors which are found mainly within the central nervous system (CNS). Morphine continues the strong opioid of choice for moderate to severe cancer pain and it is on the World Health Organization’s important drugs list.
Heroin was synthesized from morphine in 1874 by an English chemist, but was not made commercially until 1898 by the Bayer Pharmaceutical Company. Attempts were proposed to use heroin in place of morphine due to problems of morphine abuse. However, it turned out that heroin was also highly addictive, and was eventually classified as an illegal drug in the United States. Today, heroin in the United States comes mostly from Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Latin America, Mexico, and the Middle East. It is generally sold in a white or brownish powder form or as a black sticky substance known as “black tar” heroin. Heroin found on the streets is usually mixed with other drugs or substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, talc, baking...
Opioids is a class of drug that it naturally found in the poppy flower. The poppy flower is used to make just about all of the different opioids. Some prescription opioids are made from the plant directly and others are made by scientists in labs using the same chemical structure. There are many different kinds of prescription opioids that come from the poppy flower for example:
Morphine is effective pain medication used in hospitals and prescribed by physicians for the treatment of moderate to severe pain. It is used for treatment for both acute and chronic long term pain management. Morphine is an opiate analgesic derived from opium. Opium is obtained from the natural growing opium poppy plant (papavera somniferum) by scraping the unripe seed capsule, and then collecting and drying the rubbery exudates. Morphine acts directly on the central nervous system to decrease the feeling of pain. Morphine has both positive beneficial effects and negative effects. Tolerance to morphine happens rapidly, requiring more of the drug to achieve the desired pain relief effect and feelings of euphoria make abuse and addiction
The chemical company Bayer offered heroin as a cough suppressant and was advertised as being a non-addictive substitute to morphine. Free samples of heroin were distributed through the mail to morphine addicts in the early 1900s, with high hopes of helping them overcome their bad habit. In 1909, Congress passed the Opium Exclusion Act barring the importation of opium for the use of smoking. The act was the first initiative in the United States war on drugs. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 taxed and limited the access to opiates, but it also served as a de facto prohibition of the drugs. That same year, Kennedy Foster wrote an article in the New York Medical Journal that made his distaste in the use of morphine known. A few years after Bayer stopped mass producing heroin, German scientists at the University of Frankfurt first synthesized oxycodone with the hope that it would retain the analgesic effects of morphine and heroin with less dependence. Heroin sales stopped completely with the passing of The Heroin Act of 1924, which made the manufacture, sale, possession, and use of the drug illegal in the United States. (Website
Heroin is an opioid based drug that is growing in popularity. This drug is highly addictive and is a short-acting drug that forces users to need to use several times a day to continue to feel the high; withdrawal symptoms are strong an onset very quickly. Part of the reason heroin has become so popular is the fact that it is actually becoming cheaper to purchase on the streets than any other opioid drug. Unfortunately, research is lacking in specific areas of heroin addiction specifically within the youth population. ““It’s a grey area -- there’s not much out there in terms of research” on treating young people with heroin addiction, said Philip Herschman, Ph.D (Hunt, 2013).” There should be more research on the three types of medication used to treat heroin addiction and counselors should be more aware of these drugs and their uses.