Heroin ingestion

The mechanics of tolerance are still not fully understood. One hypothesis suggests that when habitual heroin ingestion upsets the body s natural chemical equilibrium, the body attempts to compensate for it. More of the drug is then needed to overwhelm the body s attempt to suppress the drug s influence. This kind of tolerance is found with regular use of nearly all psychoactive substances. 

Rhabdomyolysis and ventricular fibrillation has been attributed to cocaine plus diamorphine (heroin) ingestion... 

Abuse of phencyclidine hydrochloride (PCP) is a national problem that has reached epidemic proportions in urban areas of the United States. The drug is inexpensive, readily obtainable, and is usually used in combination with other drugs such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine, and alcohol (Golden et al. 1982). The routes of PCP use include inhalation, ingestion and parenteral administration. 

The doctor tells Hannah that toxicolc tests show she ingested MDMA laced with heroin. 

The street versions of fentanyl are ingested in the same ways as heroin. It is usually sold in a powder form and either smoked, snorted, or injected into a vein. Since fentanyl is water-soluble, the powder form can be cold-stirred into a solution and does not need to be boiled like other opioids. However, injection is the most common method used for ingestion on the street. It is so much more potent than heroin that in many of the overdose deaths, the user is found with the needle still in an arm, in some instances with plunger not fully compressed. Some of the designer fentanyl today is made into pill form, but in this form of ingestion, more time elapses before the user feels its effects. 

Heroin is rapidly absorbed from all sites of administration. It has high lipid membrane solubility, thus leading to rapid absorption from the blood and the blood-brain barrier. Heroin undergoes complete presystemic metabolism to morphine following oral administration. Peak morphine serum levels have occurred within 30 min after ingestion. With parenteral administration, peak levels have occurred in 10-15 min. Heroin is rapidly hydrolyzed in whole blood... 

If ritual usage of this alkaloid actually creates an irrefutable experience of the imaginal realm, it follows that those who ingest it will have their lives changed in significant ways. Here is evidence that the administration of ibogaine is able to cure heroin addiction ... 

Naloxone blocks receptor binding of endogenous opioids, called endorphins or enkephalins, produced by the pituitary, as well as blocking the effects of administered narcotics, such as morphine. These blocking drugs are used to awaken patients operated on under opiate anesthesia. Persons in coma from ingesting illegal narcotics, such as morphine or heroin, wake up within seconds after administration of naloxone. 

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