Fight Back against

heroin

Drug prevention & rehabilitation

aBuse

The Beginning 01Keeping Your Kids Off Heroin 04Looking for Signs of Heroin Use 08Detect Heroin Abuse 10Physical & Mental Effects 12Withdrawal & Overdose 14Joe’s Story of Heroin Addiction 17Prevention 24Drug Education Steps 20

What if your Loved One is Already Using Heroin? 36When a Person Needs Help 38Changes that Must Occur to Recover from Addiction 39Getting Help from Other Rehabs 43Heroin Information 45Nicknames for Heroin 47Drug Combination nicknames 48References 51

table of contents

Thirty years later, heroin won more territory in this country. It wasn’t drug dealers but doctors who were involved in its expansion. In the 1990s, the medical field began to emphasize pain management. More doctors began to prescribe some of the newer opiate pain medications on the market. As prescriptions for pain relievers soared, more of these drugs found their way to the illicit market. At the same time, many thousands of people who were taking these drugs as directed found that they had become addicted to them, and needed higher dosages just to keep their pain levels under control. When they were receiving all the pain relievers their doctors would prescribe and still needed more, some of them turned to the illicit market, doctor-shopping (going to more than one doctor to get the pills needed) or using prescription fraud to cope.

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The BeginningThere was a time that discoveringheroin abuse in an ordinary American family was unthinkable. Only jazz musicians or people deep in the

slums ever used heroin, or so it was thought. That began to change with the Vietnam War. Some GIs became accustomed to use of the drug while they were

in Asia or saw the chance to make some money by bringing the drug back with them when they came home. This was the beginning of the heroin epidemic in New York City.

And this epidemic escalated the use of the substitute

drug methadone, which had been used since

WW II when it was invented by NAZI doctors.

This firestorm of increasing distribution and increasing abuse finally led to an increase in the abuse of heroin. After all, heroin is chemically almost identical to popular painkillers like OxyContin (oxycodone), Lortab and Vicodin (hydrocodone).

Prescription pain medications on the illicit market are far more expensive than heroin. If a person ran out of money, he (or she) could get heroin on the street cheaper.

Then in 2010, pharmaceuticals began to reformulate some of these painkillers so that they could not be abused as easily. Naturally, this sent many people who were dependent on them to their local drug dealers to get heroin. In this manner, heroin arrived in suburban American homes, shocking families who never expected a family member to use this drug.

By 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 100 people were dying every day from drug overdoses - with opiates like painkillers and heroin sitting at the top of the list.

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Keeping Your Kids Off Heroin and other Opiates

Heroin, hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine and other pain relievers are direct or semi-synthetic derivatives of opium. When they are partly or fully synthetic, they are referred to as “opioids,” as they are similar to opium. Direct derivatives of opium are called opiates.

Heroin exists in our communities and close to our schools and homes. The annual Monitoring the Future survey of teens reported in 2012 that 20% of high school seniors felt that heroin was “easily available.”

The stigma associated with heroin has been changing over the last couple of decades so your children’s ideas about heroin may have changed, too. For many years, it could only be administered by needle. Changing methods of manufacture allowed the drug to be smoked or snorted. Many people who would never inject the drug were willing to try smoking it. Thus heroin’s appeal increased and the stigma attached to it decreased. But

once a person begins smoking heroin, he or she may crave the more intense rush they could get from

injecting it. The degradation of one’s morals that is commonly associated with heroin use

opens the door to an injection habit.

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Keeping your children safe from this destructive road now means starting to talk to them very early. They must be educated on the danger associated with abuse of prescription pain medication because this may be the first drug they are exposed to. Not realizing that these drugs are

addictive, many young people think they are safe to abuse because they are handed out by doctors. But in fact, they are every bit as dangerous to abuse as heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine.

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You can successfully prevent drug abuse by your children. We can help you. More than anyone else, parents hold the key to preventing drug abuse by their children.

Children listen to what their parents say, even if they don’t appear to. Take action now to prevent abuse of or eventual addiction to heroin.

Looking for Signs of Heroin Use The last few years, the potency of heroin being sold in the US has been much higher than usual, leading to a rash of heroin overdose deaths. Potencies as high as 50%, 80% or even 90% are not uncommon. A person may be accustomed to abusing OxyContin and then switch to heroin, then, because the potency of heroin is so uncontrolled, may overdose.

The potency of heroin being sold in the US has been much higher than usual, leading to a rash of heroin overdose deaths.

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Heroin is usually sold as a white or brownish powder. There is also a dark, sticky “black tar” heroin manufactured in Mexico. High potency or purer heroin can be smoked or snorted, but it can also be injected. Powdered heroin may be diluted or “cut” with powdered sugar, starch or powdered milk. Less pure heroin must be diluted and injected.

To detect heroin abuse in a family member, look for these signs:• Sleepiness, nodding off• Unexplained periods of euphoria and activity followed suddenly

by severe fatigue• Confusion, disorientation• Declining responsibility and work or study performance• Needle injection marks (“tracks”) on the inside elbow or elsewhere

on the body• Covering the body with long pants and long sleeves when not

warranted by the weather to cover tracks• Lying

• Thefts, criminal activity, missing money• Odd sleeping patterns• Weight loss• Scabs and sores from picking at skin• Runny or itchy nose• Slurred speech

Drug paraphernalia that may be found includes syringes, spoons, tiny plastic bags or wrappers, water pipes.

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Physical and Mental Effects

Soon after use, heroin causes a rush or surge of pleasurable sensation. The intensity depends on how the drug is taken, how pure it is and how much tolerance to the drug a person has developed. Injecting heroin provides the biggest rush.

When a person is a chronic user and does not have much money, he (or she) may just be able to get his hands on enough heroin to keep withdrawal sickness from kicking in. An addict will refer to this as “getting well.” There is no rush of euphoria in this situation. The person is just coping with the urgent need for the drug and is not able to get enough of the drug to get high. He is using to get well.

Other effects of heroin include:

• Warm flush• Dry mouth• Heavy feeing in the extremities• Doping off (Nodding or falling asleep

The primary effect of long-term use of heroin is addiction. While there are a few heroin users who manage to function, care for families and hold jobs, the vast majority of heroin addicts suffer severe declines in health, relationships, financial situations, personal integrity and responsibility for others. Many are lost to productive society completely. They turn to theft, assaults, prostitution and other crimes to keep their habits going.

• Nausea• Vomiting• Itching

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Dangerous effects, including Withdrawal and Overdose

As discussed previously, a heroin user risks overdose every time he uses the drug. Sometimes a batch of heroin is so pure that a person dies suddenly, with the needle still in his arm or leg. Heroin slows the breathing which is how the drug kills a person. It also slows the heart.

Damage to one’s health includes collapsed veins, especially in the arms and legs, bacterial infections, infection and inflammation of the heart, blood-borne diseases like HIV or hepatitis and abscesses. Sharing dirty needles is one of the prime causes of HIV (AIDS) infection.

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Heroin withdrawal is a miserable process. They will feel like they have a terrible and persistent case of the flu with vomiting, diarrhea and chills. They will be uncontrollably restless and their legs may kick out involuntarily. They will have enormous trouble sleeping and be depressed. Sleep depravity can last for weeks and weeks. The worst symptom may be the muscle and bone aches. One person said that his withdrawal was like having a steamroller drive over his arms and legs.

Heroin withdrawal can be fatal to an unborn baby, so pregnant women who want to get sober are normally maintained on a dose of

When a person overdoses on heroin, their breathing will be very shallow and slow. Their lips and fingertips will get blue. Skin will be cold and clammy and they may suffer convulsions or go into a coma.

2010 Heroin Addiction Treatment Admissions by age:

• 12-17: 1,361• 18-20: 15,523• 21-25: 52,560

Joe’s Story of Heroin Addiction

Joe’s first exposure to heroin occurred when he was just twelve years old. The older boys he was hanging out with gave him some heroin to snort. While he was still in middle school, he added marijuana, Ecstasy and LSD to his mix of drugs.

When he was in his 20s, he started making methamphetamine with a friend who just got out of prison and he quickly became severely addicted to this drug. When he later found OxyContin, he stopped using methamphetamine and returned to his opiate habit. This habit would continue for the next seventeen years.

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He was now a prisoner to the need to find some kind of opiate every day to keep himself from going into withdrawal.

A co-worker suggested to Joe that he find a methadone clinic where he could get a daily dose of opiate and save him from the need to chase the pills or heroin he needed every day. “It’s still a bad addiction,” the friend said, “but it will save you money and you won’t get arrested.” Joe enrolled in a methadone program and stayed on it for seven years. He said after a while he felt “sort of normal, but drugged.” He continued to abuse morphine and heroin in addition to taking the methadone the clinic gave him.

Finally, he began to look for a solution to his addiction, because he realized that as long as he was taking the methadone, his confidence in being able to live the life he wanted to live was constantly diminishing, along with his self-respect. He went to his first rehab program at a Narconon facility.

Because of the long-lasting quality of a dose of methadone, it took Joe weeks to fully withdraw from the drug. He said, “I didn’t sleep normally for the first twenty-one days.” He made a thorough job of working his way through the steps of this rehab program so he could truly learn how to stay sober once he went home. On his graduation, he returned home to resume his life and his job, free at last from any dependence on heroin or other opiates.

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Prevention

Of course, preventing the abuse of heroin really means preventing the abuse of any drug. Drug abuse often starts early, so explaining the dangers, in the very simplest terms, must start before the teenaged years.

If your child is already in his teens, start anyway! It is never too late to improve the situation through education.

The likelihood that your child will at some point be surrounded by people drinking or using drugs and will be offered drugs is overwhelming. He must know to expect this, he must expect his peers to ridicule him if he refuses the offer to join in and he must know in his heart that he must walk out of this environment if he is to stay sober. He must truly understand the damage that can occur if drugs are abused, all the way up to and including addiction and overdose. Obviously, this information must be approached gently in the early years.

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One of the most essential messages to send is that both the child’s parents are united in their opposition to any kind of substance use, including alcohol until after the child is 21 years of age. This is an important message whether the family all lives in the same household or not. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Colombia University, if a person can avoid drinking or using drugs until after he turns 21, he is virtually certain to never have a problem with substance abuse.

Parents must set a good example of sobriety as well. If a parent says that drug abuse is not acceptable but then drinks frequently or uses prescription drugs that could be avoided, this mixed message will undermine the parent’s efforts to keep the child sober.

Of course, if the parent is using illicit drugs or abusing prescription drugs or alcohol, the best thing he could do to keep the child sober is get himself cleaned up, followed by this drug education to his family.

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Drug Education Steps 2. Find good times to talk to your children when you will not be interrupted by telephones, television or visitors. The best effect will be created if you cover this subject a little at a time, which means you will need several conversations to get all the way through this information. Make very sure that after the first couple of conversations, you come back to the topic again until you have covered all the points included here. (Of course, it is recommended that you follow an education on heroin with further education on other drugs.)

1. Learn about your subject. For more information on heroin, you can visit:

• http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/heroin-information.html• http://www.justice.gov/dea/docs/drugs_of_abuse_2011.pdf• http://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/heroin

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3. Explain that children or adults he knows could start using heroin. Explain why these people may start, for example:

• He (or she) may have personal problems or stresses he does notknow how to handle and may see drugs as a way to escape.

• He may have been bored or wanted more excitement in his life.• He may have felt that he would be more popular and accepted by

others if he joined others in using heroin.• He may have difficulties or weaknesses that drugs seem to make go

away, like problems talking to the opposite sex, fears, anxieties ordepression.

Heroin causes a numbness to feelings or problems and makes physical pain go away. There is a euphoria that may be quite valuable to some people, despite the risks involved in drug abuse.

If drugs make these problems seem to go away, the child may see value in repeating the abuse again and again, which can kick off intense cravings that trap the person into a pattern of drug abuse.

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4. Explain that you want to help your children stay sober, that if they find themselves tempted or they do use drugs or drink, they should come to you immediately for help. You must be prepared to help without criticism if they are to feel safe coming to you.

5. Go over the effects of different forms of heroin and what kind of damage it causes, including physical, mental and financial harm, along with destroying relationships and trust. Invite them to ask questions or voice observations or opinions. Be realistic and don’t exaggerate the harm. If you say one thing and they see something else in life, they may discount everything you say.

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6. Describe the way that peer pressure to use drugs or drink can be very subtle, feeling like nothing more than the desire to join in the fun everyone else seems to be having.

7. Talk over the way that drug abuse in movies, television shows, or music videos might make heroin use look glamorous or fun. Point out that most movies featuring heroin and other drug use often omit the worst consequences. Explain the way that moral and physical decline, overdoses, arrests and other harm can occur with heroin abuse. 31

8. Let them know that drug residues are stored in the body and thus the lingering damage of drug abuse can stay with them for many years. This damage can include effects like cloudy, slow thinking, emotional shutoff, depression, difficulty learning or problem-solving, even lasting personality changes like paranoia or anxiety.

9. Explain that the abuse of any drug or alcohol can damage or destroy a person’s ability to achieve his other goals, even in one night due to an accident or overdose.

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11. Help them envision their goals in life, pointing out that making decisions that help them achieve their goals are antidotes to wanting to use drugs. If they are not sure what goals appeal to them, you may have to give them time to think this point over. Remember to come back to it. Once you know what they want to achieve, compliment and reward them for their achievements leading up to these goals. Remember, however, that your child may go through many changing goals as they grow up. The exact goal, as long as it is positive, is much less important than having a goal of one’s own choice.

10. Above all, do your best to make it safe for them to talk to you about their friends using drugs or alcohol, about their own substance abuse or concerns.

This is a very brief overview of how to protect your children. For a thorough, step-by-step guide to educating your children on drugs, please read the entire booklet Talking to Kids About Drugs that can found here:

http://www.narconon.org/media/talking-to-kids.swf35

What if your Child or Loved One is already Using Heroin?

Determine if he (or she) is addicted by checking these points. Has he or she:

• Tried to quit or promised to quit and then returned to heroin use?• Suffered damage to health?• Been arrested once or more than once

for DUI, DWI or drug possession?• Suffered serious damage to family life?• Suffered severe financial damage or ruin?

• Overdosed once or more than once and needed emergencymedical help?

• Abandoned goals or educational plans?• Suffered significant personality changes that could include

aggression, paranoia, dishonesty or loss of motivation?• Created suffering for those around him due to neglect, physical or

mental abuse?• Been seriously affected by heroin use in other ways?• Already been to rehab one or more times and relapsed every time?

This is only a very brief test. But if these signs are present and the person has continued to abuse heroin, it is very likely that he is addicted. This person may only be able to get sober with help from an effective rehabilitation program.

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When a Person Needs Help

At some time or another, nearly every family will have to deal with the addiction of one of their members. It could be an uncle that seems half-drunk at every family celebration, someone who lost everything to prescription opiate addiction or a loved one who has been using heroin. It is important to know how to find this person a lasting solution.

The kinds of changes that must occur to recover from addiction include:

• A person must find relief from the incessant, intense cravings thatmake sobriety difficult or lead to repeated relapses.

• He (or she) must overcome the depression that accompaniesaddiction.

• He must gain more self-control and recover his clear perception ofhis world.

• He must also find relief from the guilt that results from addiction.• He must regain a sense of morals and personal responsibility.

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• He must learn the life skills that make it possible to maintain asober path toward success after he returns to his usual life. In otherwords, he must feel better and more competent after rehab thanbefore it.

When you look at this list, you are probably looking at the changes and life skills you hope to see in your loved one. The Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation program is designed to bring about these changes and many more that are necessary for a person to stay sober for the rest of his or her life.

The Narconon program is long-term, giving a person the time to recover from the destruction that occurs during addiction, and enabling him to learn and practice sober living skills. Narconon has more than four decades of experience repairing the types of damage done by addiction. Narconon can help you bring your loved one back to the way he was before addiction stole him away. He may even develop the abilities to live a better life than ever before.

You can locate a Narconon drug rehab program here:http://www.narconon.org/narconon-centers/

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Real recovery takes longer than twenty-eight days. There is no fixed time limit for completing the Narconon program. A person graduates when he demonstrates that he is prepared for the challenges of staying sober and living an ethical, more productive life. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a rehab program of ninety days or longer is recommended for the best chance of success in rehabilitation.

Getting Help from Other Drug Rehabs

More than ten thousand rehab programs in the US can be found here, including the dozen Narconon centers in the United States:

http://findtreatment.samhsa.gov

This is a complete database of all different types of drug rehab, searchable by city, county, state and type of program.

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• Dope• H• Big H• White• White Lady• China White• Mexican Mud• Horse• Scag• Black Tar• Brown Crystal

• Brown Sugar• Nod• Chiba• Chiva• Tar• Smack• Junk• Black Pearl• Dragon (smoking heroin

is called “Chasing theDragon”)

Nicknames for HeroinNorth America consumes more than 40% of the world’s heroin. Once the drugs hit US soil, they are usually distributed to gangs and criminal groups that break the large shipments into smaller packages. From there, these small packages find customers with cravings and addictions.

The area suffering the greatest threat from heroin is the Northeast, where trafficking channels have existed for many decades. Increased production in Mexico and South America has resulted in more American cities receiving shipments of this drug. Miami, Texas and the Pacific Coast states have also been particularly hard hit by this drug.

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Common drug combination nicknames that include heroin

Heroin & cocaine:

• Speedball• Belushi• Boy-Girl• H&C• Murder One

• One and One• Smoking Gun• Snowball• Whiz Bang

Heroin & marijuana:

• Canade• Woola

Heroin &

methamphetamine:

• Meth speedball

Heroin & LSD:

• Beast

• Woolie

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References• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrocodone#United_States• http://www.nbcnews.com/health/opiate-addiction-how-prescription-painkill-

ers-pave-way-heroin-817543• http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/07/12091096-crackdown-

on-painkiller-abuse-fuels-new-wave-of-heroin-addiction• http://www.monitoringthefuture.org//pubs/monographs/mtf-vol1_2012.pdf• http://drugabuse.com/library/heroin-abuse/• http://wrighttownshippolice.org/drug%20facts.htm• http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/webt/quicklink/US10.htm• http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment• http://www.casacolumbia.org/upload/2012/2012924familydinnersVIII.pdf• http://samafoundation.org/youth-substance-addiction/effects-of-drugs-on-

adolescent-brain/• https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/drug-trafficking/• http://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs44/44849/44849p.pdf

Heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine,

Rohypnol &

alcohol:

• The Five Way

Heroin, cocaine & Tobacco:

• Flamethrowers

Heroin & cold

medication:

• Cheese

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