Heroin

Drugs are a growing problem in the U.S. Whether they are prescription or illegal, they are misused more often than they used to be. One specific drug is the illegal substance heroin. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death is the latest recognized by the media, but there are many others every day.

In 2011, 4.2 million Americans 12 years or older had used heroin at least once in their life. About 23 percent of people that use heroin become dependent on it. Heroin can be used in many different ways, making it the drug of choice for many addicts. All routes of administration take the drug directly to the brain, making the high almost immediate. After the administration, the user experiences dry mouth, heaviness of the extremities, and clouded mental functioning. After the initial rush, the user goes “on the nod”, which is an “alternately wakeful and drowsy state”.

Regular heroin use changes the functioning of the brain, and can cause two things to happen. One if them is tolerance. This means that more of the drug is needed each time to achieve the desired high. The other is dependence. This means that the continued use of the drug is necessary to avoid withdrawal symptoms, which include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, and much more. There are also several serious health issues that are brought on by the use of heroin. Some of these include fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion (if pregnant), and infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis. Other serious issues are collapsed veins, clogged blood vessels, and liver or kidney disease.

Once a person begins using heroin, it almost immediately becomes an addiction. Using can cause health issues, money loss, homelessness, and many other things that are hard to recover from. To treat an addiction to heroin, there are medications and therapies to help the user depend less on the drug and cope with withdrawal.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/heroin

Ashlee Holtzclaw

@acoleslaw98