Heroin

Opium is extracted from a particular variety of poppy seeds. The main constituent of opium is morphine.

With very simple chemical reaction morphine can be converted into heroin and it is very dangerous because one dose can make you an addict and over dose can end your life.

Heroin is metabolized in the body to 6-acetylmorphine and morphine and all the three can make you addict.

It is sold as a white or brown powder which contains different amounts of heroin stretched (mixed) with different other substances to make more money.

The main effects are euphoria followed by alternative wakefulness and drowsiness and the mental function is affected.

Infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B or other sexually transmitted diseases are transmitted when the same needle is used by different addicts to inject heroine. To prevent this new needles are supplied sometimes in some countries free of cost to the addicts.

How does one become addict so quickly? If we take medicines or drugs corresponding receptors are formed in our brain and normally if you stop the medicine or tablets, the receptor disappears, but in the case of opiates, where morphine mono acetylmorphine and heroin are members, the heroin receptors are formed but even after they are completely excreted from the body, the receptors are not disappearing. You get the carving to get more and more to fill up these receptors, you try to get it at any cost to avoid the withdrawal symptoms and the vicious cycle starts without an end mostly till your death.

Here we try to fill the receptors with medicines like methadone which have a very high half life period so that there will be no withdrawal symptoms. In course of time patients successfully practising thse substitution therapy could lead a normal life. A strong will is necessary to out of this addiction.

How often does one need the heroin injection? It always depends upon the amount of heroin present in the powder. Heroin has only few minutes half life period, the time in which the amount of heroin becomes half in one’s body. Mono acetylmorphine, the first metabolite of heroin has 10 to 15 minutes and morphine has two to four hours half life period. So one needs few injections in a day and is prepared to get it at any cost.

One may take the several thousand euros valuable watch of the mother and sell it for two doses of heroin; the black market price of heroin may be only 60 euros per injection. The addicts break the house to steal money and other things and they break the drug stores, steal the medicines there and swallow whatever they get. Very often they also try to snatch the handbags of old women.

There are several other examples like this and the worst problem is prostitution including child prostitution and thereby HIV/AIDS infection. NGOs and government try with social workers here to inform about the safer sex with condom so that there will be less infections. It is a continuous but losing fight, but it is worth doing.

Say always no to drugs; they are not good for our health…

Heroin or morphine is a strong pain killer, do they feel any pain?

Heroin and morphine are very strong painkillers. In the beginning even heroin is used as a painkiller in many countries.

Today pure heroin is given to very strong addicts in some countries as a medicine so that they need nor buy the dirty street hereins with several additives to increase the weight to make more money. Very few countries are allowing this with strict supervision.

The addicts do not feel any pain except the withdrawal symptoms if the receptors are free. This painkilling effect makes the story worse.

Mostly the addicts have bad oral hygiene, the bacteria attack the gums and tooth fall is the result. Normally they do not work and so have no health insurance and the social welfare department has to pay, some go to the dentist and some do not. This means you can see patients without teeth; the main reason is, as you told, heroin or morphine is strong painkillers and they do not feel the tooth pain till the end.

Say always no to drugs; they are not good for our health…

Which is the most dangerous drug in our world?

If I want to answer you in a jovial way, I would say our food, the excessive food we eat.
Do not forget the Americans are consuming five times more than us and 20% of their children are obese. In Germany are the most women and men with overweight compared to other countries in the European Union.

Now, to be serious, heroin is the most dangerous narcotic drug because it makes you addict even after a single use knowingly or unknowingly because its receptors will not disappear from our body after that. Then you need it for ever or some other substitution drug which could bind with the receptors always.

All substances which make you addict are bad to us, the only exception is your life partner.

Drugs Abuse - What are the substances abused?

Medicines we need to become healthy when you are sick. Only necessary minimum amount must be taken. Never forget, all the chemicals are poisons. The dose makes the poison. Many drugs have the potential of addiction. Ask your doctor clearly before you take any medicine about the side effects and addiction potential.

There are substances from different groups which are abused and they include:

• Alcohol

• Nicotine (tobacco)

• Caffeine

• Natural plant substances from mushroom

• Heroin

• Cocaine

• Designer drugs including ecstasy

• Amphetamine/methamphetamine

• Ketamine

• LSD

• Gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB)

• Phencyclidine (PCP)

• Cannabis (marijuana or hashish or THC)

• Anabolic steroids (doping substances)

• Prescription medicines or tablets

• Flunitrazepam, date rape drug

• Inhalants (organic solvents)

Say “No” to all drugs

Drugs abuse - social, legal and narcotics - Case Study 1

Lisa was 13 years old when I met her in my chamber. She was a child with a very pale face but decently dressed and her manners were very good. She put some questions about the drugs monitoring in the urine.

I explained her, the methods but she wanted to know how to make a drug test negative. As I told her that I know how to manipulate, but I would never teach her. She laughed shyly and told that she could find it in the Internet but it was easy for her to know from me. I asked her whether she would like to have a cup of coffee and we talked about her during our coffee.

She was 11 years old when a brother of her friend put heroin in her coke and the sad story started from there without an end till now. She was open to tell that she used to stand near the harbour to get men to earn money to pay the next trip. She was HIV positive because she even was prepared to sell her body without condom for quick and good money. Lisa is one of the hundreds of children who come to this situation because somebody put only once heroin in their soft drinks. Heroin is so dangerous that if you take it once knowingly or unknowingly you are an addict……..

Lisa sat still in front of me, she laughed heartily and I saw her mouth with only few teeth. The addicts experience no pain because heroin and its metabolites, 6-Acetyl morphine, morphine and others are very strong painkillers. How shameful is it for all of us? Who knows when she died on a park bench lonely or in a winter night when the temperature is less than minus 15 degrees C near a house door or with a golden shot?

Say “No” to all drugs