Heroin chronic users

Chronic users of heroin may develop tolerance to some of its effects, thereby necessitating larger doses to develop the characteristic high . Cessation of use can result in withdrawal. Classic symptoms are restlessness, insomnia, agitation, hypertension, tachypnea, tachycardia, piloerection, vomiting, and diarrhea. 

At least with regard to cocaine and heroin, the vast majority of the money spent on these illegal drugs in the United States is by chronic users (those people with abuse or dependence disorders). According to a report prepared for ONDGP, 84.4 percent of the expenditures for cocaine were spent by chronic users of this... 

In the Americas, the largest opiates market is the USA with about 1.2 million heroin users (0.6% of the population aged 15-64). This is based on estimates of chronic and casual heroin users for the year 2000. More recent estimates of overall heroin use in the USA are not available. Trend data suggest, however, that heroin use has declined since 2000. Household survey results appear to confirm this. They show that there were 380,000 heroin users in 2005 (or 0.2% of the general population age 12 and above), down from 400,000 in 2002. 

Health consequences of chronic heroin abuse include scarred and collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, boils, a variety of soft-tissue infections, kidney problems, and liver disease. Pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other lung diseases are also common among long-term users, which can be attributed to either poor nutrition and depressed respiratory function or both. Many of the additives heroin is cut with do not dissolve in the body and can block blood vessels, translating into higher risk of sudden death from stroke or heart attack. 

Opioid addiction in the USA has been increasing at alarming rates. Almost two million persons aged 12 or older have used pain relievers non-medically for the first time in the past year [1], Fifty-five percent of these pain relievers were obtained from family and friends, with only 17 % having been prescribed by a doctor. In the treatment of chronic pain, opioid addiction develops in only about 3 % of those treated in general medical practice [6]. The overuse of these pain relievers may explain the upsurge in the number of heroin users that has increased from 373,000 individuals in 2007 to 620,000 in 2011. 

From 1980 to the present time, wound botulism has been observed predominantly in illicit drug users following repeated subcutaneous administration of black tar heroin, or in individuals with nasal or sinus lesions from chronic cocaine abuse (Anderson et al., 1997). During the last decade alone, wound botulism from black tar heroin has exceeded the total reported wound botulism cases during the preceding 40 years by a factor of almost three (Sandrock and Murin, 2001). 

The primary uses of methadone hydrochloride (Dolo-phine, others) are relief of chronic pain, treatment of opioid abstinence syndromes, and treatment of heroin users. It is not used widely as an antiperistaltic agent. It should not be used in labor. 

Opioids frequently are used in combinations with other drugs. A common combination is heroin and cocaine ( speedball ). Users report an improved euphoria because of the combination, and there is evidence of an interaction, because cocaine reduces the signs of opiate withdrawal, and heroin may reduce the irritability seen in chronic cocaine users. 

Cheryl (relapsing heroin user) and Rachel (antisocial cocaine abuser) can be called chronic addicts but for very different reasons. Rachel has antisocial personality disorder. Why can t Cheryl recover I don t know. Maybe she will someday or maybe she will die from this addiction. 

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