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WAS SIE WISSEN MÜSSEN
Complete Educational Resource
Download the complete Narconon heroin education brochure for comprehensive information.
Vollständige PDF-Broschüre herunterladenComplete educational material from Narconon
Was ist Heroin?
HEROIN IS A HIGHLY ADDICTIVE, ILLEGAL DRUG. It is used by millions of addicts around the world who are unable to overcome the urge to take it every day of their lives—knowing that if they stop, they will face the horror of withdrawal.
Heroin, like opium and morphine, is made from the resin of poppy plants. Milky, saplike opium is first removed from the pod of the poppy flower. This opium is refined to make morphine, then further refined into various forms of heroin.
Most heroin is injected, creating additional risks for the user, who faces the danger of AIDS or other infection on top of the pain of addiction.
Wie sieht Heroin aus?
In its purest form, heroin is a fine white powder. But more often, it is rose-gray, brown or black. The coloring comes from additives that have been used to dilute it, which can include sugar, caffeine or other substances.
Street heroin is sometimes "cut" (diluted) with strychnine or other poisons. The various additives do not fully dissolve so, when injected into the body can clog the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, kidneys and brain. This itself can lead to infection or destruction of vital organs.
Users buying heroin on the street never know the actual strength of the drug in that particular packet. Thus, users are constantly at risk of an overdose.
What is Cheese Heroin?
Cheese heroin is a highly addictive drug. It is a blend of black-tar Mexican heroin (called black tar because of its color) and over-the-counter cold medication, such as Tylenol® PM.
The drug costs only a couple of dollars a hit. Children as young as nine, hooked on cheese heroin, have been rushed to emergency rooms for heroin withdrawal.
Deadly Combination
The combination of the two drugs can cause vital body functions, such as breathing and heartbeat, to slow down and result in death. Over a ten-year period, cheese heroin was responsible for at least forty deaths in the North Texas region, according to local authorities.
Identifying Heroin Use
HEROIN IS A FAST-ACTING OPIATE. When it's injected, a surge of euphoria arrives within seconds. Those using the drug other ways may not feel this surge as sharply.
Physical Signs
- • Tiny pupils
- • Sleepy eyes
- • Tendency to nod off
- • Flushed skin
- • Slow breathing
- • Slurred speech
- • Runny nose
Behavioral Signs
- • Vomiting
- • Scratching
- • Complaints of nausea
- • Complaints of constipation
- • Failure to eat
- • Neglect of grooming
Paraphernalia
- • Syringes
- • Burnt spoons
- • Rubber tubing
- • Tiny baggies
- • Small glass pipes
- • Dark, sticky residue
- • Tan or whitish powdery residue
- • Covering arms with long sleeves
Heroin Street Names
Common Drug Combination Nicknames
Heroin and Cocaine:
Speedball, Belushi, Boy-Girl, H&C, Murder One, One and One, Smoking Gun, Snowball, Whiz Bang
Heroin and Marijuana:
Canade, Woola, Woolie
Heroin and LSD:
Beast
Heroin and Cold Medication:
Cheese
The Destructive Effects of Heroin
Immediate Harm
The initial effects of heroin include a surge of sensation—a rush. This is often accompanied by a warm feeling of the skin and a dry mouth. Sometimes, the initial reaction can include vomiting or severe itching.
After these initial effects fade, the user becomes drowsy for several hours. The basic body functions, such as breathing and heartbeat, slow down.
Within hours after the drug effects have decreased, the addict's body begins to crave more. If he does not get another fix, he starts experiencing withdrawal—extreme physical and mental discomfort. The intense high a user seeks lasts only a few minutes. With continued use, he needs increasing amounts of the drug just to feel normal.
Kurzfristige Auswirkungen
- • Rush
- • Slowed breathing
- • Clouded mental functioning
- • Nausea and vomiting
- • Sedation; drowsiness
- • Hypothermia (body temperature lower than normal)
Langfristige Auswirkungen
- • Bad teeth
- • Inflammation of the gums
- • Constipation
- • Cold sweats
- • Itching
- • Weakening of the immune system
- • Coma
- • Respiratory illnesses
- • Muscular weakness, partial paralysis
- • Reduced sexual capacity and impotence
- • Menstrual disturbance in women
- • Loss of memory and intellectual performance
- • Depression
- • Loss of appetite
- • Insomnia
Medical Complications
MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CHRONIC HEROIN ABUSE include scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, abscesses (boils) and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease.
Physical Complications
- • Lung complications (pneumonia, tuberculosis)
- • Clogged blood vessels leading to organs
- • Infection or death of small patches of cells
- • Immune reactions causing arthritis
- • Collapsed veins from frequent injections
- • Infections of blood vessels and heart valves
Infectious Diseases
Sharing injection equipment or fluids can lead to severe consequences:
- • Hepatitis infections
- • HIV
- • Blood-borne viruses
- • Transmission to sexual partners and children
More than half the 35,000 new hepatitis C infections come from injection drug use. As many as 9 out of 10 IV drug users eventually test positive for hepatitis C.
Heroin Addiction and Withdrawal
Tolerance and Dependence
WITH REGULAR HEROIN USE, TOLERANCE DEVELOPS. This means the user 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 Timeline
Withdrawal Symptoms
- • Drug craving
- • Muscle and bone pain
- • Diarrhea and vomiting
- • Cold sweats with goose bumps
- • Kicking movements
- • Restlessness
- • Insomnia
- - Ängstlichkeit
- • Depression
Sudden withdrawal by heavily dependent users in poor health is occasionally fatal, although heroin withdrawal is considered much less dangerous than alcohol or barbiturate withdrawal.
Real Stories, Real Consequences
Alison
"From the day I started using, I never stopped. Within one week I had gone from snorting heroin to shooting it. Within one month I was addicted and going through all my money. I sold everything of value that I owned and eventually everything that my mother owned. Within one year I had lost everything.
I sold my car, lost my job, was kicked out of my mother's house, was $25,000 in credit-card debt, and living on the streets of Camden, New Jersey. I lied, I stole, I cheated.
I was raped, beaten, mugged, robbed, arrested, homeless, sick and desperate. I knew that nobody could have a lifestyle like that very long and I knew that death was imminent. If anything, death was better than a life as a junkie."
— Alison
Sabrina
"Drugs equal death. If you do nothing to get out, you end up dying. To be a drug addict is to be imprisoned. In the beginning, you think drugs are your friend (they may seem to help you escape the things or feelings that bother you). But soon you will find you get up in the morning thinking only about drugs.
Your whole day is spent finding or taking drugs. You get high all afternoon. At night you put yourself to sleep with heroin. And you live only for that. You are in a prison. You beat your head against a wall, nonstop, but you don't get anywhere.
In the end your prison becomes your tomb."
— Sabrina
The New Face of Heroin
THE IMAGE OF A LISTLESS HEROIN ADDICT COLLAPSED IN A FILTHY, DARK ALLEY IS OBSOLETE. Today the addict could be twelve years old, play video games and enjoy the music of his generation. He could appear smart and stylish and bear none of the common traces of heroin use, such as needle marks on his arm.
Changing Demographics
Because it is available in various forms that are easier to consume and more affordable, heroin today is more tempting than ever.
A young person who might think twice about putting a needle in his arm may more readily smoke or sniff the same drug. But this is falsely reassuring and may give a person the idea that there is less risk.
The truth is that heroin in all its forms is dangerous and addictive.
Alarming Statistics
Between 1995 and 2002, the number of teenagers in America, aged twelve to seventeen, who used heroin at some point in their lives increased by 300 percent.
Painkiller Addicts Switch to Heroin
HEROIN HAS FOR MANY YEARS BEEN A FRINGE DRUG, one which did not top the lists of most commonly abused substances. Now, however, heroin is making a major comeback, and it has spread to the suburbs and become common in communities throughout the US and across all levels of society.
The Connection
The reason for this is tied closely to the news that prescription drug abuse is on the decline. Though they come from very different sources—heroin from opium grown in Afghanistan or Southeast Asia, and prescription painkillers from pharmaceutical drug companies—the two share the fact that they are both derived from opium.
Because of this, it is easy for one to substitute for the other, given that they both have similar effects on the brain and create a similar high.
The Transition
What seems to be occurring is that as efforts to prevent painkiller abuse have taken effect, many addicts have felt the squeeze, and transitioned over to heroin as a substitute when their painkiller supply dried up.
Effects of Methadone Use
MOST PEOPLE KNOW THAT METHADONE (a synthetic narcotic drug, more powerful than morphine) is given to those who have been addicted to opiates like heroin to prevent withdrawal symptoms. This is known as Methadone Maintenance Treatment.
Dangerous Statistics
Methadone accounts for only 2% of painkiller prescriptions
But is behind more than 30% of prescription painkiller overdose deaths
In Utah, methadone supplies increased sixfold in five years, but deaths increased by 15 times.
Adverse Effects
- • Intolerance to heat
- • Weight gain
- • Constipation
- - Übelkeit
- • Low blood pressure
- • Vomiting
- • Irregular heartbeat
- • Loss of appetite
- • Difficulty urinating
- • Swelling of hands, arms, feet and legs
- • Insomnia
- • Sexual disinterest or dysfunction
Health Problems (New Zealand Study)
- • Sweating
- - Kopfschmerzen
- • Fatigue
- • Depression
- • Hay fever
- • Abscesses
- • Sleep disturbances
- • Dental problems
42% of those on methadone met the criteria for major depression.
Withdrawal: Most people withdrawing from methadone find it to be a much longer process than withdrawing from opiates, because of the length of time the drug stays in the body. It can take a month for a person to get fully recovered from methadone before they start a drug-rehab program.
Heroin: Its Origin
THE ORIGIN OF HEROIN GOES BACK TO OPIUM, which has been used for both recreational and medicinal purposes for thousands of years.
1830s - British Opium Dependence
By 1830, the British dependence on the drug reached an all-time high. The British sent warships to the coast of China in 1839 in response to China's attempt to suppress the opium traffic, beginning the "First Opium War."
1850s - Morphine "Solution"
During the 1850s, opium addiction was a major problem in the United States. The "solution" was to provide opium addicts with a less potent and supposedly nonaddictive substitute—morphine. Morphine was widely used as a painkiller during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Many soldiers became addicted.
1898 - Heroin Introduction
It was first manufactured in 1898 by the Bayer pharmaceutical company of Germany and marketed as a treatment for tuberculosis as well as a remedy for morphine addiction. But heroin had twice the potency of morphine.
1937-1947 - Methadone Development
With the heroin problem came yet another "nonaddictive" substitute—methadone. First developed in 1937 by German scientists searching for a surgical painkiller, it was exported to the US and given the trade name "Dolophine" in 1947. Unfortunately it proved to be even more addictive than heroin.
Late 1990s - Current Reality
By the late 1990s, the mortality rate of heroin addicts was estimated to be as high as twenty times greater than the rest of the population.
What Are Drugs?
DROGEN SIND IM WESENTLICHEN GIFTE. Die eingenommene Menge bestimmt die Wirkung.
Wirkt als Stimulans (beschleunigt Sie)
Wirkt als Beruhigungsmittel (bremst Sie aus)
Gifte und kann töten
Das gilt für jede Droge. Nur die Menge, die benötigt wird, um die Wirkung zu erzielen, ist unterschiedlich.
Viele Drogen haben aber noch eine andere Eigenschaft: Sie wirken sich direkt auf den Geist aus. Sie können die Wahrnehmung des Konsumenten von dem, was um ihn herum geschieht, verzerren. Infolgedessen können die Handlungen der Person seltsam, irrational, unangemessen und sogar zerstörerisch sein.
Drogen blockieren auch alle Empfindungen, sowohl die erwünschten als auch die unerwünschten. Während sie also kurzfristig Schmerzen lindern, schalten sie auch die Fähigkeit und Wachsamkeit aus und trüben das Denken einer Person.
Über Arzneimittel
Medikamente sind Mittel, die dazu bestimmt sind, die Funktionsweise Ihres Körpers zu verbessern, indem sie die Arbeitsweise des Körpers beschleunigen, verlangsamen oder verändern. Manchmal sind sie auch notwendig. Aber Medikamente sind trotzdem Drogen: Sie wirken als Stimulanzien oder Beruhigungsmittel, und zu viel davon kann tödlich sein. Wenn Medikamente missbraucht werden, können sie genauso gefährlich sein wie illegale Drogen.
Über Narconon
NARCONON (BEDEUTET "KEINE BETÄUBUNGSMITTEL") Das Drogen- und Alkohol-Rehabilitationsprogramm steht allen offen, die ihre Abhängigkeit beenden und ein produktives, drogenfreies Leben führen wollen.
Das Narconon-Programm befasst sich nicht nur mit den lähmenden Auswirkungen des Drogenmissbrauchs auf Geist und Körper, sondern hilft auch dabei, die Gründe für den Drogenkonsum zu beseitigen. Infolgedessen haben Zehntausende das Narconon-Programm absolviert und ein neues, drogenfreies Leben begonnen.
Neben der Drogenrehabilitation haben die Narconon-Mitarbeiter in der Drogenprävention Millionen von Schulkindern aufgeklärt. Narconon verfügt über mehr als fünfzig Jahre Erfahrung in der Drogenaufklärung und hat bewiesen, dass es gelingt, junge Menschen von Drogen fernzuhalten.
Glossar der Begriffe
Abscess
An area on the skin or in the body that is swollen and full of pus (thick yellow liquid that forms in infected tissue).
Barbiturate
Any of a group of drugs used in medicine to calm people or make them sleep.
Blood-borne
Used to describe a disease, virus, etc., that is carried by the blood.
Constricted
Made smaller, tighter and narrower.
Euphoria
A feeling of great happiness and well-being.
Hepatitis C
A virus that attacks the liver and leads to inflammation. It is passed through contact with contaminated blood—most commonly through needles shared during illegal drug use.
Immune System
The interacting combination of all the body's ways of protecting itself from disease, illness, infection, etc.
Junkie
A drug addict, especially someone addicted to heroin.
Methadone
A powerful, addictive synthetic drug used as a substitute drug in the treatment of addiction to heroin. The drug has been known to cause life-threatening side effects and death.
Morphine
A powerful addictive drug used in medicine to relieve severe pain. It is sold and used illegally and if overdosed, can cause death.
Opiate
A drug that is used to bring about sleep and for relieving pain that contains opium or an opium derivative.
Opium
An addictive drug that reduces pain and causes drowsiness. It slows breathing, which can result in unconsciousness and even death.
OxyContin
An addictive painkiller that is a synthetic opiate with numerous side effects, including tiredness, hot/cold sweats, heart palpitations, joint and muscle pain.
Paralysis
A condition in which someone is unable to move part or all of his body.
Strychnine
A bitter poisonous drug obtained from the seeds of certain trees and plants found in such places as India, China and northern Australia.
Surge
A sudden, sharp increase in something.
Get the Complete Information
Download the full Narconon heroin education brochure for complete details and additional resources.
Vollständige PDF-Broschüre herunterladenThis educational material is provided by Narconon for drug education and prevention purposes.
For help with drug addiction, contact your local Narconon center.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Heroin
What makes heroin addiction difficult to quit?
Heroin addiction isn’t just physical. It creates strong emotional ties, routines, and an identity linked to drug use, making quitting much harder than overcoming physical withdrawal.
Why is street heroin so dangerous today?
Today’s street heroin is often mixed with fentanyl or other powerful substances. Even small amounts of these additives dramatically increase the risk of fatal overdose.
Can someone fully recover from heroin without medications?
Yes, programs like Narconon use completely drug-free rehabilitation methods, focusing on life skills and emotional recovery rather than medication.
Does heroin addiction change personality?
Yes, heroin addiction significantly affects motivation, emotions, and judgment, often leading to profound personality changes and social isolation.