Heroin Addiction

Heroin addiction is a ever present problem that has been plaguing society for years. Heroin was developed and marketed as the worlds new miracle drug and was dispensed over the counter with heroin injection kits for a number of years. As heroin addiction ran rampant across the U.S.  laws were passed to prohibit sale of heroin without prescription. As time went on, heroin addiction continued to be pose a threat and laws were passed to prohibit the distribution of heroin. 

Heroin addiction is somewhat complex for a few reasons. Heroin can be injected, snorted/sniffed, or smoked—routes of administration that rapidly deliver the drug to the brain. Injecting is the use of a needle to administer the drug directly into the bloodstream. Snorting is the process of inhaling heroin powder through the nose, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues. Smoking involves inhaling heroin smoke into the lungs. All three methods of administering heroin is considered drug abuse and can lead to heroin addiction and other severe health problems.

Heroin addiction has both a physical and psychological addiction. Heroin enters the brain, where it is transformed to morphine and sticks to receptors known as opioid receptors. The opioid receptors are in several spots of the brain (and in the body), particularly areas concerned in the awareness of pain and in reward. Opioid receptors are also in the brain stem which is vital for routine processes vital for life, such as breathing (respiration), blood pressure, and arousal. Heroin overdoses frequently involve a respiratory failure.

Heroin addiction often causes a progression of heroin use to intravenous injection of heroin, heroin addicts describe feelings of surging euphoria or a “rush” followed with dry mouth, a warm flushing of the skin, heaviness of the extremities, and clouded mental functioning. After the initial high heroin addicts will nod out goes “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy condition. Heroin addicts who do not inject the drug may not experience the initial rush, but other effects are the same.

Heroin addiction and abuse creates a tolerance develops that causes the heroin addict’s physiological (and psychological) response to the drug decreases, and more heroin is needed to get the high.

Heroin addiction and abuse during pregnancy, linked with factors like poor diet and insufficient prenatal care, has been connected with unfavorable consequences including low birth weight, which is a significant risk factor for later developmental delay. If the mother is regularly abusing heroin, the infant may be born physically with an addiction to heroin and could suffer from serious medical complications requiring hospitalization. The heroin abuse by the mother can lead to the baby being born with heroin addiction.

Heroin addiction trends seem to picking up speed according to the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the number of current heroin users in the last 30 days aged 12 or older in the United States increased from 153,000 in 2007 to 213,000 in 2008. There were 114,000 first-time users of heroin aged 12 or older in 2008. Heroin addiction admissions will be on the rise for the next several years as a result.