Taking a Look at the Power of Heroin

Heroin is a painkilling drug that is made from the Papaverum Somniferum, also known as the opium poppy plant. All opiates are addictive painkillers. Heroin starts as a milky sap of the opium poppy. The sap is then dried and becomes a gum. After washing the gum, it becomes opium. Morphine and codeine are two painkilling alkaloids that

In the United States alone, there are 1.2 million people who are using heroin. 600,000 of those users are addicted to heroin and use 150 to 250 milligrams on a daily basis. 700,000 Americans are needing treatment but are not receiving it. Heroin is more deadly than car accidents. From 2001 to 2014 there was a five-hundred percent increase in the total number of deaths. Although injection of the drug has declined, smoking has increased because the cost of clean needles has gone up and to newer users it is easier. While the popularity of Heroin in the United States of America has grown, Florida and California have the most heroin seized by law enforcement. Diacetylmorphine was first synthesized in 1874 by C. R. Wright. an English chemist working at St. Mary 's Hospital Medical School in London. He had been experimenting with combining morphine with various acids and sent it off to be analyzed.

After Heroin is injected or inhaled, it crosses the blood brain barrier, and once in the brain, it is converted to morphine and will bind with opioid receptors. This transferring is what gives the user their rush, and the more of the drug, the faster it binds and the stronger the rush. Heroin

Today all across America people are buying and selling prescription drugs and street drugs that are killing our youth and our elders. Opiates directly affect the central nervous system. Narcotics commonly known as "opiates attach to specific proteins called opioid receptors and can be found in the brain, spinal cord and gastrointestinal tract. When

“Heroin has analgesic and euphoric properties” (Abadinsky, 2014, p. 45). When the drug is taken and enters the body, heroin relieves pain, works as a sedative, decreases one’s anxiety, relaxes muscles, slows motor activity, drowsiness, and a feel of well being (Abadinsky, 2014). When taken, heroin will typically start to work within ten seconds, depending the method used to ingest the drug (Abadinsky, 2014). Most users will take a needle full of heroin after he or she cooked the powder into a liquid, and injected through the skin into a vein (Abadinsky, 2014). Heroin can also be smoked by inhaling the fumes like when marijuana is smoked (Abadinsky, 2014). There are four different stages that can occur when a person uses heroin, including the rush, the high, the nod, and being straight (Abadinsky, 2014). The rush is when the user experiences multiple types of euphoric feelings, instinctive sensations, a flushed face, and deeper vocals (Abadinsky, 2014). “Heroin activates brain systems that are responsible for reinforcing peoperties of such natural rewards as food and sex” (Abadinsky, 2014, p. 45). The high is a feeling of well-being that can last for hours, but the high can be less effective depending on the user’s tolerance to the drug (Abadinsky, 2014). Therefore, if a user has a high tolerance to the high, he or she must increase dose size in order to experience the effects of the high (Abadinsky,

It is estimated that heroin is 80 percent cheaper than opioid painkillers. Additionally, the report showed that half of people who used heroin abused opioid painkillers before they started using heroin. Heroin is converted into morphine in the body. This morphine binds to the opioid receptors in the brain. These receptors affect how we perceive rewards and

“Heroin is an opioid drug that is synthesized from morphine.” Morphine is a type of pain medication which heroin comes from. Heroin comes from opium. Opium goes way back to the industrialization era. Europeans used opium also known currently as heroin to drug the chinese and one of the biggest drug dealers was queen Victoria. They drugged the chinese because they wanted to get what they needed from them, but they did it in a very unfair and dangerous way. They put the life of so many chinese in danger and cause them to create an addiction to

Heroin was first produced in 1898 in Germany, by Bayer Pharmaceutical Company as a substitute for morphine.6 It was marketed as a non-addictive miracle drug, to use as a cough syrup and pain reliever, but 12 years later it was discovered that heroin was about two times as potent as morphine.5-6 Today, we know heroin as a highly addictive narcotic which has played its part in the worst opioid crisis in the history of British Colombia.2 Heroin is an opioid made from the resin of poppy plants which contain morphine.1 The drug itself can be a white or brown powder or a black goo.1 It is commonly mixed with water and injected with a needle right into the body, but can also be smoked or snorted up the nose.1,3 These methods send it very quickly to

Heroin is an opiate, and is a product that is extracted from the Poppy plant and synthesized from morphine. It is a white-to-dark brown powder or tar-like substance and is highly addictive because its qualities become lesser as use progresses, causing the receiver to need more of the drug to achieve the result of the pain relief. Heroin

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

a so- called "junkie" if you use it. It affects the hygiene and personal appearance of the user a great deal, because nothing is as important to the user anymore as where that next hit will come from. Heroin is injected and sometimes snorted. It causes great euphoria, but also nausea and

Heroin is one of many opioid drugs used for its euphoric effects. When doctors or other medical professions use it, it is mostly used as a pain medication. It is usually given to people who would be taking it for a long period of time and is commonly used with counseling. While in most cases it is injected into the vein, usually in the arm, it can also be inhaled or smoked too. While first taking this drug, you will quickly feel it’s effects and they can usually last a few hours, depending on the amount.

These neurotransmitters attach to the receptacles in the brain and body. They regulate hormone release, pain and the feeling of well-being. When heroin enters the body it attached itself to these receptacles and dorphine is produced in larger than normal quantities, resulting in a euphoric high. Heroin can enter the body by three different ways orally to include smoking, snorting or injection . Injection into a vein or muscle remains the choice of addicts since it is able to cross the blood barrier quickly and enter the brain.

Heroin may be a cheaper alternative to powerful and addictive drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin. CNN has reported that close to half of injection heroin users abused a

In order to understand heroin and its effects, we must understand what happens with the body at a neurological level. The body produces its own natural opiate-like substances and uses such substances as neurotransmitters. These substances are called endogenous opioids, which would include the neuropeptides endorphins, dynorphin, and enkephalins. Endogenous opioids serve several purposes, such as regulating hunger and modulating painful stimuli (thus, the use of morphine as a pain killer). Heroin and morphine are so effective because these exogenous opioids bind to the same receptors as the endogenous opioids. Notice that exogenous opioids are substances synthesized outside the body while endogenous opioids are found naturally in the body.