Heroin | What Kind of Drug Is It?
Important!
What Kind of Drug Is It?
Heroin is a powerful narcotic drug that is very habit-forming. It is derived from the opium poppy plant. Its sale and use are illegal in most parts of the world. However, this has not stopped the cultivation or farming of poppies and the creation of heroin in many countries in Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Central America, South America, and Mexico.
Highly addictive and quick-acting, heroin is a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States. The federal government does not believe that heroin has any medical value in treating illness, but it does consider heroin a very dangerous drug for recreational useUsing a drug solely to achieve a high, not to treat a medical condition. or experimentation.
Production Soars
In December 2004, the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service reported that prices for heroin being sold on the street had reached twenty-year lows, while the purity of illegal heroin had increased. The major reason this occurred was because opium poppy farmers in Afghanistan had started growing huge amounts of the plants again. The supply of opium out of Afghanistan greatly increased after the fall of the country's Taliban government in late 2001.
The Taliban government had tightly controlled opium production before being overthrown by U.S. troops and their allies during Operation Enduring Freedom. The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan after terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. The Taliban was suspected of allowing terrorists to train in Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban, poppy production soared, giving American drug dealers plentiful supplies of more affordable heroin to peddle to consumers.
Increased Purity
The increased purity meant that users could experience the heroin high without having to inject the drug into a vein. Typically, heroin users snort, smoke, or inject the drug just under the skin or into a muscle. Some people mistakenly believe that they will not become addicted to the substance if they do not inject it. Like all other natural and syntheticMade in a laboratory. opiatesAny drug derived from the opium poppy or synthetically produced to mimic the effects of the opium poppy; opiates tend to decrease restlessness, bring on sleep, and relieve pain., powdered heroin carries a high risk of producing dependence over a period of time. Dependence is the physical need for a drug in order to ward off withdrawal symptoms.
No one gets out of bed one day and decides on a whim to seek out a dark alley in a rundown neighborhood to buy a bag of heroin, convert it to a liquid, and then shoot it into a vein with a hypodermic needle. However, this is often the end result of continued recreational use of the drug. As the testimony of countless former addicts shows—as well as the number of emergency room visits—the drug can take hold of a user and destroy his or her life.
According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), between 1990 and 2000, emergency room visits related to heroin nearly tripled, from 33,884 in 1990 to 97,287 in 2000. DAWN statistics from the last half of 2003 showed that heroin was involved in 47,604 drug-related emergency department visits during that time. In addition, the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs reported that the average age of American heroin users dropped from 27.4 years to 17.6 years between 1988 and 1997. Heroin fatalities strike rich and famous users as well as poor and anonymous users. Itisan illegal substance that lures new addicts all over the world every year.