Short-Term And Long-Term Effects Of Heroin
Heroin began as an over the counter drug in the early 1900s, it was used as a pain relief, antidiarrheal action, and cough suppression. It was thought to be nonaddictive so ironically, heroin was recommended specifically as treatment from other addictive drugs. Around the time of 1910 was when it was recognized that heroin was a problem, in 1914, the Harrison narcotic act made heroin and other heroin-based medicines illegal. Heroin is usually sold to others as a white powder in a paper bundle, or as a tar wrapped in foil or a balloon.
People often use heroin when they place it in a cooker, which can be a spoon or a wire-held bottle cap, however anything that holds 5ml of fluid and can stand heat can be used as a cooker. The person adds water, then puts a flame to the cooker to allow the solution to increase solubility. Once they do that, the liquid is then aspirated into a syringe. The user can then inject themselves with heroin in a couple different ways like inserting under the skin or straight into a vein. Heroin can have some serious long and short-term effects for the people who use the drug. Some immediate effects of the use of heroin can be a “rush” which is a “pleasurable sensation”, which often feels like a warm skin feeling, dry mouth, and heaviness in the extremities.
After these initial affects, the person may feel drowsy for several hours, cloudy mental state, and heart and breathing slows which can be fatal. Some of the Longterm effects of heroin can be addiction, addiction can cause people to do anything to get heroin such as selling their stuff, unmoral acts, murder, and other crime. Heroin can cause disruptions within family, work, and education making your life crash. Often times the user can also obtain diseases like Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS because of dirty or used needles. Often, a police officer may find a narcotic at a crime scene and may need to test and see if its heroin or any other drug. Testing heroin is a simple process as a testing kit tells you how to perform the test. In the test you can rub some of the substance on a fiber tip than place the tip into a tube, then break the ampoule to see if a color reaction occurs. If a color reaction occurs than the substance is heroin.
When police collect the evidence, they should refer to their Standard operating procedure (SOP) to know exactly how to handle the controlled substance. Often police should document the evidence with who collected the substance and where it was found. Police should package the substance in a plastic bag unless it is wet, then it should be put in a paper bag to breathe. Keeping the substance in different packaging will reduce contamination and therefore keeping it good for trial.
