Black Tar Heroin
Close-up Picture Of HeroinHeroin is an opiate drug synthesized from morphine. It usually appears as a white or brown powder or as a black sticky substance referred to as “Black Tar Heroin.”
Heroin users will inject, snort, or smoke the drug to give it a rapid delivery to the brain. Regardless of method used for administration of the heroin, all can lead to addiction and cause other serious health issues.
When heroin enters the brain it converts into morphine effecting the receptors involved in the perception of reward and pain, and the opioid receptor in the brain stem that deal with automatic processes such as breathing, blood pressure, and arousal. The most common heroin overdose involves the suppression of the respiration.
Those who inject heroin feel a immediate rush followed shortly by dry mouth, warm flush of the skin, heavy feeling limbs, and a clouded mental functioning. This is followed by a “nod phase” where the user will alternate between a wakeful and drowsy state. Other methods of delivery go through the same sequence except not all will experience the initial rush. Heroin users develop a tolerance for the drug and will have to use more to achieve the same effects they once experienced on a lesser amount of heroin.
Heroin abuse is associated with many serious health conditions such as:
• fatal overdose
• spontaneous abortion
• particularly in users who inject the drug—infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis
• collapsed veins
• infection of the heart lining and valves
• abscesses
• liver or kidney disease
• Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health of the abuser as well as from heroin’s depressing effects on respiration
• Street heroin often contains toxic contaminants or additives that can clog the blood vessels leading to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain, causing permanent damage to vital organs.
• physical dependence
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I know that the drug is addictive but I'm at a loss to understand why someone would even try a drug that is so dangerous that they could die. I am so blessed that I was never tempted to try drugs. My heart goes out to families with a drug using member.
ReplyDeleteI never ceases to amaze me how something good can be misused to the point of abuse. Dying people who are in pain are often given morphine to help them tolerate it. The other end of the spectrum are people who are using it, causing themselves pain, often dying from it. How are families to survive this?
ReplyDeleteBlack Tar Heroin looks really disgusting. Does it look that bad when people use it?
ReplyDeleteI thought all heroin was injected. I had no idea that it could be inhaled or smoked. I guess there's a lot I don't know about drugs.
ReplyDeleteThat list of health conditions is downright scary. I have to wonder if people give any consideration to what they may be doing to their body's before they start using heroin. Once they start I know it's not something they even think about, from the first time it's all about how they feel at the moment. It's very sad.
ReplyDeleteI had a friend who developed Aids from heroin use. It got really ugly at the end right before he died. If I was ever tempted to try it, I would only have to think of his quality of life during the time he used right up to the time he died.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind telling you that heroin scares the hell out of me. I have dabbled with marijuana, and yes, I know it's wrong and illegal. But there are lines I won't cross and this is one of them.
ReplyDeleteI have to wonder if showing so much drug use on TV is putting it into the heads of kids who would otherwise not have used it.
ReplyDeleteI work in a hospital ER. We see heroin addicts almost daily. They are so pathetic. You want to help, but they have to want it themselves first.
ReplyDelete