Heroin is one of the most abused and most addictive psychoactive drugs that the world has ever seen. It is twice as powerful as morphine is and less than half as useful (considering euphoria and hallucinations are not the intended use). The use of this drug has been a continuously growing challenge for ‘drug trafficking monitoring organisations’ as well as the local authorities. The drug was synthesised for the first time by Felix Hoffman, who was also responsible for the synthesis of aspirin. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that it was a brilliant marketing move to create the cure for headache and the source of headache at the same time. But, unfortunately, the theorists did not reveal which of the two was responsible for the headaches and which cured it. To put an end to this mystery, one of the two drugs needs to be examined in great detail and since heroin was endorsed by Kurt Cobain (which theorists speculate gave him Nirvana), it will be the obvious choice.

Heroin is an opiate, belonging to the codeine- morphine family of opiates. It’s chemical or technical name is diacetylmorphine. It is extracted from the capsule or fruit of opium poppy plant. Addiction of heroin needs administering of just a mild dose of the drug for the first time. The extent of addiction to this drug can be gauged from the fact that this drug is ranked at the top of the list of 20 most abused psychoactive drugs in United States according to the US national survey on drug use. The popularity of the drug is exemplified by the number of celebrities and famous personalities who make it to the list of regular heroin users – Eric Clapton, Amy Winehouse, Keith Richards, Elvis Presley, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eugene Lipscomb and King George V.
Heroin is administered into the body by smoking, snorting and injecting directly into the veins, though injection remains the most popular mode of administration of the drug. This drug was traditionally used as potent pain-killer or ‘analgesic’ alongside morphine, especially in World War II casualties. Some people claim that heroin makes them heroic (or at least feel heroic), for which Captain America and Buzz Lightyear would definitely have something to say about.

Reasons of becoming addicted to heroin
As the drug takes effect following the administration, it causes a feeling of intense pleasure and euphoria in the user. This feeling (of euphoria) is subsided with time as the drug takes hold completely. This brings the feeling of profound relaxation to the user. The user keeps drifting between the states of euphoria and relaxation, till the effects of this drug scale down. After sometime as the drug depresses the central nervous system of the user, his ability to function mentally is temporarily lost.

The lasting effects of this drug include impairment of vision, slurred or inaudible speech, contraction of pupils, slower movements, vomiting and constipation. The scale down of this drug and the subsequent feeling of deep relaxation is the main reason for getting addicted to heroin. The drug user, rather abuser, takes a second dose of this drug for halting or delaying the effects of scaling down of this drug and the more frequently the user does this, the worse the consequences of scaling down become and the more addicted the user becomes to this drug. This makes heroin one of the scariest addictive drugs on the planet. A heroin addict can experience withdrawal symptoms after just three days of use unlike other addictive drugs.

A heroin addict becomes physically and psychologically dependent on drug. In other words, he/she needs regular administration of the drug for his /her body to function properly. The side effects and withdrawal symptoms of the drug are extremely dangerous for the person, which make the drug more dangerous and rehabilitation and recovery even more difficult as compared to other psychoactive drugs.
The addiction to heroin has also been associated with the increment in crimes as well as infections all over the world. As the person becomes addicted to heroin, he constantly needs money to buy the drug, which makes him/her susceptible to committing crimes, such as robbery, theft, drug smuggling, deception and frauds. The craving for the drug can cause the drug addict to become violent and can lead to heinous crimes such as murder, rape, arson or rioting.

Heroin addiction is also responsible for increased incidence of infectious diseases such as Hepatitis C, HIV and tuberculosis among those addicts who administer the drug intravenously. The sharing of injection needles by drug addicts needs to contagion of the diseases.

Short Term effects caused by heroin

You can spot a heroin addict by looking for numerous characteristic symptoms such as dryness of mouth, brief periods of intense euphoria, warm flushing of the skin, gloomy mental function, restlessness, runny nose, heaviness in arms and legs and slowness of breathing rate. These symptoms occur immediately after the administration of the drug and are usually referred to as ‘high’. Use of heroin even occasionally, can at times cause respiratory failure in addicts.

Long term effects caused by heroin
Use of heroin can have potentially disastrous consequences on the health of addicts. Long term effects of heroin use include liver diseases, infection of the valves and lining of the heart, pulmonary complications, joint diseases such as arthritis and kidney diseases. Addiction by the mode of intravenous injections can put addicts at risk of developing abscesses, tuberculosis, and pneumonia, scarring and collapsing of veins.

As the ‘high’ produced by the drug tapers off, more drugs needs to be used each time by drug addict for achieving the same ‘high’ which often leads to the overdose of heroin. Overdose of the drug can lead to brain damage, severe seizures or death. The administration of heroin has potentially debilitating effect on the disease fighting system or ‘Immune system’ of the body. Addiction to this drug makes fighting even minor infections like common cold very challenging for the body. Even breathing becomes a challenge for the heroin addict during relatively mild infections.
Emotionally, addiction to heroin takes the addict to a point where administering the drug becomes the only life objective for the drug addict, which obviously has a number of social ramifications, including social isolation of heroin addict, dislocation of his/her family and mental or psychological stress and professional underperformance in the family members, relatives and friends of the addict.
Withdrawal symptoms of heroin
The severity of the withdrawal symptoms of heroin is also one of the main reasons of severe addictiveness of this drug. It causes some of the worst symptoms that an addict can possibly suffer from. These symptoms include, among others, insomnia, dilation of pupils, muscle cramps, goose bumps, loss of appetite, diarrhoea, panic, stomach cramps, irritability, shaking and vomiting. That is why addict prefers to continue addiction instead of going through these symptoms. The reason for the severity of these symptoms is that natural pain alleviators called Endorphins are constantly replaced by heroin, which makes body so much dependent on opioids of heroin. The unnaturally high level of heroin opioids makes the body to behave normally only under continuous rush of pleasure, which when taken away causes horrific body aches and pain. The withdrawal symptoms of heroin reach their peak on third and fourth day, while it lasts through eighth day. However, surviving these symptoms for eight days makes rehabilitation and abstinence from this drug a huge challenge for the addict. Statistics have revealed that on an average, a heroin addict stops and starts detoxification procedure 10 to 25 times in their lifetime, relapsing to heroin addiction every time after detoxification procedure.

Treatment for controlling heroin dependency
A combination of techniques needs to be tried for controlling the dependency of an addict on heroin and bringing him/her out of the ‘Addiction zone’. Detoxification of the addict is the first step in this regard, wherein the consequences of drug abuse are eliminated, which is followed by systematic reduction in the tendency of craving for the drug. Methadone and Buprenorphine are the drugs that are used for the detoxification process. Methadone is used initially for stabilising the addict. In other words, methadone blocks the effect of heroin if the addict tries to administer heroine during the course of treatment. It is followed by the introduction of behaviour therapies. These therapies, which typically include cognitive behavioural interventions, are carried out in a heroin rehabilitation centre. These therapies are aimed for redesigning the viewpoint of an addict towards his/her life. These technical interventions help the addicts in dealing with stressful circumstances of life without seeking recourse to the drug. A technique which is the combination of behavioural and clinical interventions is considered to be the most effective for complete rehabilitation of the heroin addict.
An effective treatment procedure typically takes anywhere between 3 months and one year to complete, depending upon the level of addiction of heroin. For the treatment to be effective, it should take into account all the aspects of the life of an addict. A variety of services can be offered to the addict under rehabilitation that is beyond the basic treatment methods. Counselling of a family member, or for the whole family, can be quite beneficial for the treatment. Sometimes, an addict takes recourse to the drug due to numerous health-related, social or psychosocial reasons, without elimination of which, treating addiction becomes largely difficult. All of these issues of a heroin addict need to be addressed during the course of the treatment procedure for the possibility of success of the treatment. Addicts need to be encouraged to keep a periodical regarding the emotions which arise during the treatment so that they may be addressed during the therapy sessions.

For the treatment to be effective it should be started at an early stage. The chances of complete rehabilitation and recovery are greater if the treatment is undertaken early. However, the most important fact that needs to be understood is that heroin addiction is extremely harmful to health and it should be avoided altogether. The treatment may improve the health of the addict but the damage done by heroin to the brain is largely irreversible.