Heroin is a very powerful drug! It is the byproduct of the Opium Poppy Plant! It also produces a very pretty flower that is deadly! The Scientific name is Papaver Somniferum! This wording means sleep inducing flower! The name comes from a drowsy, dreamlike state or feeling that is one of the effects of the Drug! In 1905 the Bayer Company in Germany was searching for a drug that was not addictive like morphine! Heinrich Dresser, a Chemist for the company, synthesized the drug and came up with a new drug called: diacetylmorphine or Heroin! It was a stronger drug and was given the name “Heroine” which was a female hero! The name was changed to heroin because it was even more addictive then morphine! The company quickly discovered that it had made a mistake! Heroin is a opiate which slows the central nervous system down and it reduces heavy pain! Its cousins are Codeine and Morphine! It is grown in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Thailand and Laos! It is also grown in Central America, South America and especially in Columbia! The crop only takes three months to grow! Inside the pod under the flower is an egg shaped seed pod! It contains a milky sap. This is Opium in its crudest form! When the pods are cut, the sap oozes out and is collected and then sent to a refinery where it is turned into a powder! At these illegal refineries there is no quality control and there is the reason why many addicts can overdose on this drug! Because of a lack of quality control many people have died! In the manufacture of heroin two highly toxic chemicals are used! Hydrochloric acid and Ether to make the white powder that we know a heroin!
 

Once this product is distilled the workers turn it into a 2.2 lb brick! These bricks are called Kilos! They are then packaged and smuggled into the United States from other countries! In the US that 2.2 lb or Kilo will bring as much as $150,000. to $185,000 once it is repackaged into very small bags! When the bricks come into the US, the drug dealers will dilute or cut the powder by using rat poison, sugar and flour! This drug is often smoked, snorted or injected with a needle! Unfortunately heroin has become more readily available in all US cities! As a result many communities where heroin use was once very low is now very high! For example, Plano, TX is considered to be one of the safest cities in America! Yet 11 people died last year of heroin overdose! In Orlando, 48 people died from an drug overdose! Ten of those who died were under 21 years old! Heroin is highly addictive. Once a person starts using hard drugs, stopping is extremely difficult for both physical and psychological reasons!

Who Uses Heroin?

George Samson was a very successful musician who seemed to have everything going for him. He was happily married, and he had a young child! The popular alternative Rock Band, Heavy Metal Rock Band had invited the keyboard player to perform with the group during its World Tour. But good times ended on Feb 12, 2001 in London when Samson overdosed on heroin in his hotel room! The Coroner’s report stated that the overdose he had taken told his brain to shut down his heart and he simply stopped breathing! What the drug does is to slow your heart rate down and when the blood stops pumping to the brain you die! He had ODed in Scotland three weeks before but you never think that the drug is going to kill you! Well it did! When you are on drugs your common sense goes right out the window! You don’t think straight! Your brain is fizzy! You don’t see things right and that’s when things go deadly wrong!

How does Heroin work in the Body and the Brain!

All opiates including those prescribed by a Physician are used as painkillers. They first relieve your pain and then they make you drowsy and cause a very pleasant feeling or a great state of mind! There is a great feeling of contentment. They are worry free! Heroin relieves stress and any discomfort by making a person feel detached or cut off from reality! The effects produced by heroin are more immediate and intense. Within just a few minutes the user feels a powerful surge of pleasant, peaceful feelings through out the body. This is called the RUSH and lasts for a few minutes. The user now feels so incredibly relaxed that this feeling can be very dangerous. Here is where the user can overdose! When a user overdoses with any drug, the drug shuts down all the body's automatic motor reflexes that operate the brain, heart, and the lungs! Now the brain tells all the life support systems to shut down and in fact turns off the entire electrical system that operates our body’s life functions! Then the person stops breathing and dies! That’s what happens when the user increases the volume of the drug to get even higher with each new trip! This feeling lasts for about a few hours! People who are high on heroin usually have very poor judgment, coordination, slurred speech and slow reactions are telltale signs. Their pupils are very small. Their eyes maybe glossy, and their faces will be flushed. They may
feel nauseated or vomit especially if they are a first time user! This happens because the drug stimulates a part of the brain that causes vomiting when a toxic substance has been ingested. Worse yet is the fact that some addicts add alcohol to the mix and now you no longer have any common sense or a right thinking mind! Now your vision is impaired on top of all the other problems you have! Many people who were using drugs and alcohol have killed other people because they enter a super highway going the wrong way at 65 miles an hour! The results were head on crashes and death!


Tolerance and Addiction

At first, even a small amount of heroin will have a powerful effect on a new user. However, as a person continues to abuse the drug he or she will require more and more amounts of the drug to get higher. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the user will begin to experience withdrawal symptoms in 12 hours. The symptoms of heroin withdrawal once the dose starts to wears off of an even moderate amount will require that you need another fix! If you have been addicted for some time you will need heroin everyday and you will found out you cannot live without it! Here comes the crime!

Nicotine Addiction

Nicotine addiction on a scale of 1 to 20 is about 4 compared to 20 for Heroin addiction! If you have smoked during your life then you will recall that your brain would issue a call to have a smoke! There was always the situation cigarette! The driving cigarette, the after lunch cigarette. The drink at the bar cigarette! The beer and the cigarette! If you were not able to act on the suggestion to have a cigarette because you were working then you know all about that itch. Now your stress levels will increase until you have that nicotine fix! It is much like a small monkey on your back! The difference between that itch and a heavy duty drug is the difference between a little monkey of two lbs and a 300 lb Gorilla jumping up and down on your entire body! The other symptoms are muscle spasms, aches, sweating, chills, convulsions and vomiting! Every cell in your body is unhappy and it needs to be fed HEROIN NOW! Now your stress levels will increase until you have that heroin fix! A person can become delirious or experience hallucinations during withdrawal! Here comes the pain process because the 3 trillion cells in your body are now hooked on heroin and these cells will drive you nuts! Now you really have a problem if you don’t have the money to buy the drugs you need. Here comes the crime aspect of the drug culture! You will rob a 7-11 store, a bank, or someone on the street to get the cash to buy your next fix!

Long-Term Dangers of Heroin Use

Using heroin over a long period of time can cause physical damage that is not directly related to the drug itself! For example, users want to get high quickly so they forgo any sanitary use of cleaning their needles. When they share these needles they can contact a number of diseases including HIV, Tetanus, Hepatitis and other dirty needle diseases. Another common problem among addicts is damage to the veins in their arms and legs from continually injected themselves with needles! Some have died by accident because they had pulled in air bubbles into the needle and then injected these air bubbles into themselves which caused death in a few minutes!

Other Dangers

Illegal drug manufacturers in Central America and South America set up dirty warehouses that are not in any way clean like that of a FDA inspected laboratory that you would find in the US! There is no quality control! A seller or a street distributor may cut the heroin to their own liking on dirty tables and dilute or cut the drugs! They will use sugar, caffeine, flour or talcum power to the mix. These products can clog your veins and cause a blood clout which will lead to a stroke or death! Many addicts have died from lung, kidney and brain clouts. Heroin addicts are often affected by depression, insomnia and the inability to concentrate and also of feeling great sadness! They often lost their jobs because of poor performance which now means they have no way to earn money for their habit! Here is where the crime comes in! They have borrowed money from all their friends and family over the years and now no one will give them any more money because they know that they will spend it on drugs!


Women at Risk and Pregnant Women at Greater Risk!

There are many more problems for women who decide to use heroin. Heroin has many negative side effects especially for a woman who wants to have children. The drug is linked to serious complications like miscarriages and premature delivery! Children who are born with Mothers who are addicts have a greater chance of dying from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Babies whose Mothers have used drugs develop much slower than normal and in many cases are mentally shy of normal childrens IQs as they grow up! A Mother who is with child will pass on to that child all the nutrients including elements of the drug! If the chemicals and drugs such as heroin are present in the Mother’s bloodstream, they will pass it on to the fetus! When this happens the newborn baby must go through the same withdrawal pains as the Mother! Once hooked on hard drugs it will take a user about five to ten years to get back their real lives from the drug culture!
 

This information is not for your Elementary School child! This is for you and your spouse to understand that in a few years your child will be invited to become a drug addict when they are a teenager! That older teenage friend will try and get them HOOKED! That is why you must now begin to educate your child about what drugs do to their body. We can’t save every child but we do want to SAVE your Child from a life of Drugs and Crime!