CocoShanelle's Blog

From the website http://www.drugfree.org/portal/drug_guide/heroin

It looks like a dark brown powder or a tar like substance.

Short term effects

- They appear after a small single dose and tend to disappear after a few hours.

- The feeling a ‘rush’ will happen which is then accompanied by a hot flush, dry mouth and heavy extremities.

- The user will then go on a ‘nod’ going through a wakeful and drowsy state.

- Slowed and slurred speech is common.

- Constricted pupils and droopy eyelids.

- Vomiting and constipation.

Long term effects

- Constant users may develop collapsed veins, infections of the heart lining and valves.

- Abscesses and liver disease.

- Depression is very common.

- Some street heroin may have additives that do not dissolve properly  and this could result into clogging the blood vessels which lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys or brain. This can cause infection or even in some cases DEATH.

Information from http://www.talktofrank.com/drugs

Street heroin is sometimes used by clubbers to chill after a big night out.

Street names for heroin….. Brown, skag, H, horse, gear, smack.

Cost- Prices can vary from region to region. Feeding a heroin addict can cost up to £100 a day so it’s not cheap at all.

 What heroin looks like

This is quite a well known picture of what happened to this women when she became a heroin user. Its a before and after picture.

As you can see her face is all drawn in so she looks like a skeleton and she has basically lost all interest in taking care of her apperance

The book I used to find out this information was from ‘ Need to know Heroin’ by Sean Connolly.

What is Heroin?

• absorbed through the bloodstream and goes straight to your brain.
• Not always an effect after the first hit (on your first time of taking it).
• It is A class drug.
• Smoked, injected or sometimes sniffed.
• Absorbed into the body in many different routes, because it dissolves in fatty substances and can cross into the body’s cells.
• Not very effective through the stomach.
• Sniffed- enters the bloodstream through the nose.
• Smoked- enters the bloodstream very quickly through the lining of the lungs.
• injects directly into the bloodstream immediately and the effects happens straight away because none of the drug is lost.

Is Heroin addictive?

Physical side

• Physical dependance is the idea of tolerance body becomes accustomed to the drug and begins to need it more.
• After several weeks, the pleasure of the first heroin highs is replaced by the relief at getting hold of the drug.
• Only pleasure now is giving your body the drug it cry for.
• Greatest risk is contracting hepatitis or HIV.
• Passed on through exchanging body fluids, serious risk at getting them through people sharing needles or syringes.
• The lifestyle leaves no room for eating or sleeping properly, rundown and open to other infections.
• Acts on the digestive system, constipation and some stomach ailments.
• Respiratory system leaving users prone to pneumonia and bronchitis.

Overdose and withdrawal

• means to take more than intended to

Signs of an overdose

• Can happen within minutes but can take up to 1-12 hours.
• Breathing slower and irregular.
• Skin turns blue due to the blood pressure dropping, then falls into a coma.
• Death can occur from this.

Withdrawal also known as cold turkey

• If they stop they feel dramatically ill. Reaches a peak 3 days after last heroin dosage.
• Symtons similar to a bad flu fever, aching limbs, sweating, restlessness, cramps and insomnia.
• Skin becomes itchy and gets bumps.
• Feels anxious and isolated nightmares occur aswell.
• Symtons go roughly after a week or ten days.
• The feeling of weakness  can last for several months.
• The bad thing is that many users return to the drug after this experience.
• Scientists now believe that the psychological dependance is a more powerful factor in keeping heroin users hooked on the drug.

Who takes heroin?

• Makes pain seem unimportant.
• Lifts users and encourages them to be more active and talkative like cocaine and amphetamines.
• Sends users through intense sensations and emotions.
• Those who’s lives seem intolerable, long-term unemployed, the poor and other disadvantaged people.
• offers a break from reality
• People in rundown inner cities districts tempted to take heroin.
• Heroin user show little interest in the outside world.
• They go into  numbing cocoon.
• Finding there next fix becomes their main concern.

Quote ‘ After a while you need the drug to feel normal. Then you need more and more the drug to keep feeling normal. Then you forget what normal is’ anonymous ex heroin user.

Life with heroin…. The only things you think about is how you are going to get the drug and how the best way to get the heroin into your bloodstream.