Heroin Addiction : A Chronically Relapsing Disease

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.

This paper is intended to educate those who almost nothing about heroin and those who use it. Many people have been associated with friends or families who have used some kind of drug. There are many people who have not had any contact with heroin users or if they have, don’t understand much about it. Using various sources about heroin to explain where it came from, how it is used, who uses it and how a person starts on the path towards heroin, preventing addiction, and global issues surrounding this drug. Although the topic of heroin is inexhaustible, it is my hope to spark reader’s curiosity. Knowledge of this drug might just help the reader join in on discussions about heroin.

This literature review will focus mainly on the drug use of heroin, the scary numbers behind the drug and the sudden rise of overdosing on the drug across the United States. Issues that will be discussed are what is Heroin, what’s in Heroin that makes it addicting, how it can increase the users risk of contracting other life threatening diseases and where it’s use and abuse are most popular across the United states and we will take a look at multiple studies that show examples of our new drug problem in the United States. While we looked at how homicide rates have dropped while in class, the flip side to that is that the amount of drug usage has risen.

Heroin addiction is one of the leading killers of adolescents and adults in the United States. In recent years, addiction has skyrocketed, and “the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths increased by 286 percent between 2002 and 2013.” In 2002, “100 people per 100,000 were addicted to heroin, and that number has doubled by 2013” (The National Institute on Drug Abuse 2013). The most affected populations include low income males, adolescents, and those who have a family history of addiction, due to their increased susceptibility and crime-ridden environment. While it may seem as though heroin addiction is “just another drug problem” in the U.S., it is actually a problem of major public health importance because there are numerous physical, economic, and social risks associated with heroin dependence. Heroin dependence in the United States accounts for brain damage, increased homelessness, crime, and incarceration rates, as well as economic decline.

I would like to thank my friends, Sarah Erwin and Anntasia for helping me review and edit my essay.

In the US, according to CQ Researcher, the number of those that used heroin had more than doubled between the years of 2002 and 2004 and doubled again between 2011 and 2013. It is a growing issue especially due to

Heroin has been a quiet crisis on the rise over the last few decades, wreaking havoc on communities and families. Hesitance to talk about the heroin crisis makes it difficult to fight the growing trend of abuse. According to the National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health, the increase of heroin abuse has risen 80 percent since 2002 (Jones). The medical effects of addicts abusing their bodies and neglecting their health are a variety of medical conditions. A short term abuser may experience depressed respiration, distorted mental functioning, nausea and vomiting (Volkow). The long term effects of heroin abuse can be addiction, infectious disease as in HIV, hepatitis B and C, collapsed veins, bacterial infections, abscesses and infection of the heart

Drug abuse is shown to be connected to all different kinds of crime in the United States, and in many circumstances, crime is inspired by drug abuse and addiction. In fact, 80% of criminal offenders abuse drugs or alcohol (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Also, 60% of those who are arrested test positive for illicit drugs when they are arrested, and 60-80% commit another crime, typically drug-related, after leaving prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). And, even after these individuals put in the time in prison that would allow them to go through the uncomfortable process of detoxing, 95% of them will chose to go back to drug abuse after prison (National Association of Drug Court Professionals). Given these overwhelming statistics, it is clear that drug abuse, and repeated or continued drug abuse, are a serious problem facing the criminal justice system.

The social effects of opiate addiction are felt by those who may have never even seen more than an image of heroin. For example; “In an early study, for example, Inciardi reported that a cohort of 239 male heroin addicts from Miami committed 80,644 criminal acts during the 12 months before being interviewed (Inciardi, 1979).”. (Strain and Stitzer, 2006) In part, this is due to the problems associated with the severe withdrawal symptoms that begin about 18 hours after the last use, and the result that addicts will do almost anything to avoid them. These include sweating, vomiting, insomnia, cold sweats, pain in the limbs, yawning, sneezing, severe bone and muscle aches, diarrhea, stomach cramps

Since the early times, opiates, heroin, and other drugs have been used in providing analgesia as well as substitutes to reach a place of euphoria. Originally, as Yurgelum-Todd et al (2009) has noted, derived from the opium poppy, heroin has been used as an alternative to morphine in dealing with addiction (Yurgelum-Todd, p. 175, 2009). Unfortunately, over the years it has consistently become prevalent that heroin has more negative aspects than anything; heroin is highly addictive, resulting in consequences such as overdoses, infections, violence and crime, deficits in memory, learning, and

“Heroin use results in a massive amplification of dopamine activity (Sherman, 2007)”, which produces intense pleasure. It mimic's the brain’s naturally occurring opioid endorphin neurotransmitter. The chances that heroin use will lead to addiction is associated the speed in which heroin promotes dopamine, the intensity of dopamine effects and the reliability that dopamine effects will occur. It has high activity on opioid receptors, which means that there is a very high intensity of pleasure. It also has near perfect reliability for producing pleasure (Sherman, 2007).

Heroin addicts have the psychological dependence on heroin that leads them into the state of self-destruction and the possibility of leading to death by the extreme use of heroin. Never estimate the poppy flower for its power that withholds the fiends to their mentality enduring the euphoria enslavement of the mind that contained for many centuries. The heroin addiction nation is a self numbing injection and dry approach to have the mind under the state of the greatest feeling of great happiness leaving the pain behind under the spell of heroin. Heroin comes in many forms for addicts to enjoy in their own way. They come in powder and rock like form that is combined with other narcotics. The snorting form for heroin is not

Withdrawal can set in as soon as 8 hours after previous heroin use, and can include any of the following symptoms: drug craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, kicking movements, goose bumps, and depression (3).

In a study that was done back in 1970 by Sutherland and Cressey, they pointed out that in the U.S. alone, “felons are overrepresented in the addict population, [and] crime rates are increased considerably by drug addiction” (1970, p. 164). Despite having proposed several hypotheses attempting to explain the correlation between drug abuse and crime, they could not reach a conclusion. A decade later, the knowledge about the drug/crime relationship had steadily increased due to numerous studies of the incarcerated or addicted population. However, the information didn’t reveal any viewpoints that made sense aside from heroin. This view was

More and more people are sucked into the horrible addiction. An addiction is an actual disease that occurs in the brain. Many times these drugs affect the brain and in result, cause the addiction to occur. More and more there are people coming into the hospital from a heroin overdose, are released from the hospital, go back out, and inject the drug. The drug is so powerful that these individuals do not see what is happening to them as they slowly kill themselves.