Heroin: what is it?
Heroin is one of a group of drugs known as ‘opioids’. Other opioids include opium, morphine, codeine, pethidine, oxycodone, buprenorphine and methadone.
Heroin and other opioids are depressants. Depressants do not necessarily make you feel depressed. Rather, they slow down the activity of the central nervous system and messages going to and from the brain and the body.
What does it look like?
Heroin can range from a fine white powder to off-white granules or pieces of brown ‘rock’. It has a bitter taste but no smell, and is generally packaged in ‘foils’ (aluminium foil) or small, coloured balloons.
How is it made?
When the seedpod of the opium poppy is cut, a sticky resin oozes out. This resin is refined to produce opium. Opium takes its name from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, which grows in many parts of the world — commonly in Asia and the Middle East, but also in the United States and Australia.
For centuries, opium has been used by many cultures as a medicine and as a recreational drug. Morphine, codeine and pethidine are still widely used for medical purposes.
Heroin is made from morphine or codeine by a chemical process, but has a stronger painkilling effect than either of these drugs. The potency and purity of heroin used can vary substantially, depending on a number of factors, including:
- how it is manufactured;
- the ingredients used (for example, morphine and codeine); and
- what the final product is diluted (‘cut’) with.
How is it used?
Heroin is most commonly injected into a vein. It is also smoked (‘chasing the dragon’), added to marijuana or tobacco cigarettes, or snorted.
Street names
Smack, skag, dope, H, junk, hammer, slow, gear, harry, horse, black tar, china white, Chinese H, white dynamite, dragon, elephant, homebake, poison.
For more information, please click on the Australian Drug Foundation's DrugInfo Clearinghouse web site link below.
Last Reviewed: 20 September 2006
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