Drugs can vary from liquid
drugs, to all natural plants to pills, to anything. People can inhale, drink, smoke, or insert them into their bloodstream.
Drugs have a huge effect
on this generation and new ways to take them and new drugs are coming out. Heroin is defined as a white, odorless, bitter crystalline compound that is derived from morphine and is a highly addictive narcotic.
Heroin is a highly addictive
and has many long-term and short-term effects.
Short-term effects would be what a person would feel while on the drug or while coming off the high. In this case short-term effects can be many things. Shortly after
using heroin a feeling of euphoria will come over users,
in which they have a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth and the feeling of having heavy arms and legs.
After the initial effects, users will go into an alternately
wakeful and drowsy state sometimes called “on the nod.” Since heroin suppresses
the central nervous system the user has cloudy mental function. Users will begin to breath at a slower rate, which could slow to the point of respiratory failure.
Right from the start the effects come hard.
Long-term effects are for repeated
and chronic users who fail to use sterile techniques or share equipment. This includes infection of the heart lining and valves(mainly from non-sterile equipment), and liver disease. Approximately 70-80% of new hepatitis C infections
in the U.S. each year are the results of injection drug use and even sharing snorting
straws has been linked to hepatitis transmission. Additionally
long-term effects of heroin usage unclude kidney disease, pulmonary complications,
which are often infection related, skin infections and abscesses, especially among chronic injectors who suffer scarred or collapsed veins. Long-term effects like these are mainly from users who do not sterilize their equipment.
Not only are there effects that will damage your body, but addiction is a huge effect. All heroin users, even those who only smoke and snort the drug can become addicted with repeated use. Over a certain
amount of time users develop
a tolerance for the drug which results in the user needing
to increase the amount of the drug to get the same effect
to have the same feeling.
When the tolerance level to the drug rises to the level that heroin no longer produces
the euphoric effect that the
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user once experienced they become physically
dependent on the drug and they need to take it just to feel normal.
The most serious thing about drug use is accidental overdosing. Heroin is an illegal
drug and can be handled, cut and mixed with other ingredients by various suppliers
before it reaches the users. The user has no idea how potent or pure the drug is until they actually use it.
Heroin is often mixed with other ingredients such as sugar, starch, quinine and sometimes, strychnine or other poisons adding
to the danger of taking the drug. Because of the unknown strength and actual contents of heroin, users are at a great risk of overdose and death
source:About.com.Alcoholism