What is Heroin?

 

Heroin is a highly addictive drug derived from morphine, which is obtained from the opium poppy. It is a “downer” or depressant that affects the brain’s pleasure systems and interferes with the brain’s ability to perceive pain.

What are the street names/slang terms for Heroin?

 

Big H, Blacktar, Brown sugar, Dope, Horse, Junk, Mud, Skag, Smack.

What does it look like?

 

White to dark brown powder or tar-like substance. Although purer heroin is becoming more common, most street heroin is “cut” with other drugs or with substances such as sugar, starch, powder milk, or quinine.

How is it used?

 

Heroin can be used in a variety of ways, depending on user preference and the purity of the drug. Heroin can be injected into a vein (“mainlining”), injected into a muscle, smoked in a water pipe or standard pipe, mixed in a marijuana joint or regular cigarette, inhaled as smoke through a straw, known as “chasing the dragon,” snorted as powder via the nose.

What are its short-term effects?

 

The short-term effects of heroin abuse appear soon after a single dose and disappear in a few hours. After an injection of heroin, the user reports feeling a surge of euphoria (“rush”) accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities. Following this initial euphoria, the user goes “on the nod,” an alternately wakeful and drowsy state. Mental functioning becomes clouded due to the depression of the central nervous system. Other effects include slow and slurred speech, slow gait, constricted pupils, droopy eyelids, impaired night vision, vomiting, constipation, decreased sexual pleasure or indifference to sex, and reduced appetite.

What are its long-term effects?

 

Long-term effects of heroin appear after repeated use for some period of time. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulites, and liver disease. Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin’s depressing effects on respiration. In addition to the effects of the drug itself, street heroin may have additives that do not really dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. With regular heroin use, tolerance develops. This means the abuser must use more heroin to achieve the same intensity or effect. As higher doses are used over time, physical dependence and addiction develop. With physical dependence, the body has adapted to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms may occur if use is reduced or stopped.

Withdrawal, which in regular abusers may occur as early as a few hours after the last administration, produces drug craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps (“cold turkey”), kicking movements (“kicking the habit”), and other symptoms. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 48 and 72 hours after the last dose and subside after about a week. Sudden withdrawal by heavily dependent users who are in poor health can be fatal.

What is its federal classification?

 

Schedule I

Source

 

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) & National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Click on the link below to download the fact sheet for this drug:

 

Heroin Fact Sheet (PDF)

 

 

What is Tobacco?

 

Tobacco is an agricultural crop.

What are the street names/slang terms for Tobacco?

 

Chew, Dip, Fags, Smoke.

What does it look like?

 

Brown cut up leaves.

How is it used?

 

Tobacco is usually smoked. Sometimes tobacco leaves are “dipped” or “chewed” so the nicotine is absorbed via the gums.

What are its short-term effects?

 

When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes the arteries to narrow. Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This, combined with the effects produced by nicotine, creates an imbalance in the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen the blood is able to supply.

What are its long-term effects?

 

It is now well documented that smoking can cause chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, as well as cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, mouth, and bladder. In addition, smoking is known to contribute to cancer of the cervix, pancreas, and kidneys. Researchers have identified more than 40 chemicals in tobacco smoke that cause cancer in humans and animals. Smokeless tobacco and cigars also have deadly consequences, including lung, larynx, esophageal, and oral cancer. The harmful effects of smoking do not end with the smoker. Women who use tobacco during pregnancy are more likely to have adverse birth outcomes, including babies with low birth weight, which is linked with an increased risk of infant death and with a variety of infant health disorders. The health of nonsmokers is adversely affected by environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Each year, exposure to ETS causes an estimated 3,000 non-smoking Americans to die of lung cancer and causes up to 300,000 children to suffer from lower

respiratory-tract infections. Evidence also indicates that exposure to ETS increases the risk of coronary heart disease.

What is its federal classification?

 

Schedule I

Source

 

American Heart Association (AHA); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Click on the link below to download the fact sheet for this drug:

 

Tobacco Fact Sheet (PDF)

What are Prescription Pain Relievers?

These are opioids, or narcotics.

What are the street names/slang terms for Prescription Pain Relievers?

Codeine, OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin.

What do they look like?

Tablets and capsules.

How are they used?

Medically, they are prescribed as analgesics, to treat pain. When abused, they are swallowed or injected.

What are their short-term effects?

Relief from pain. In some people, prescription pain relievers also cause euphoria or feelings of well being by affecting the brain regions that mediate pleasure. This is why they are abused. Other effects include drowsiness, constipation and slowed breathing. Taking a large single dose of prescription pain relievers can cause severe respiratory depression that can lead to death. Use of prescription pain relievers with other substances that depress the central nervous system, such as alcohol, antihistamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, or general anesthetics, increases the risk of life-threatening respiratory depression.

What are their long-term effects?

Taken exactly as prescribed, pain relievers can manage pain effectively. But chronic use or abuse of opioids can result in physical dependence and addiction. Dependence means that the body adapts to the presence of the drug, and withdrawal symptoms occur if use is reduced or stopped. Symptoms of withdrawal include: restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, and cold flashes with goose bumps (“cold turkey”). Tolerance to the drugs’ effects also occurs with long-term use, so users must take higher doses to achieve the same or similar effects as experienced initially. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use.

What are their federal classifications?

Schedule I

Source

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Click on the link below to download the fact sheet for this drug:

Prescription Pain Relievers Fact Sheet (PDF)