Do you know the facts about heroin? From how it affects your brain to how it kills you?

Overdosing is now the leading cause of death in the U.S., ahead of traffic fatalities and gun homicides. And health officials warn that we’re in the midst of a new heroin epidemic that will only get worse before it gets better. Why, because heroin is so cheap to obtain. It’s linked with prescription drug abuse. The No. 1 sign that someone will use heroin, is that he or she abused prescription painkillers like Vicodin and oxycodone. One can probably go out and find an oxycodone for about $40 but one can get five envelopes of heroin for $40. Those are the economics of what’s driving the increase in heroin use.
When someone is abusing heroin, he or she may suffer from shortness of breath, dry mouth, a droopy appearance and cycles of hyper alertness followed by sudden drowsiness. Their pupils will likely appear small. Users may also show sudden changes in behavior or actions.
Twenty or 30 years ago, heroin was 6 to 10 percent pure so if people wanted to get high, the only choice they had was to inject it. These days, heroin is 50 to 60 percent pure, so most users start by snorting it, then gradually progress to smoking and injecting it.
A batch of so-called “bad heroin” has been making headlines across the East Coast. It’s mixed with the prescription narcotic Fentanyl, which is up to 100 times more potent than morphine. Dealers use fentanyl to spike heroin as a “product marketing” tactic, it provides a more powerful high than standard batches. The problem is, these guys mixing it into some of the heroin they’re selling aren’t mixing the right amount, and they’re killing their customers.The key thing about heroin is you don’t know what you’re getting. Buying a bag on the street is like playing Russian roulette – open the chamber and see what you get.

Every time someone injects heroin, they’re risking an overdose. Most often it kills you because you stop breathing. We typically don't need to think about breathing, because it's an automatic behavior driven by centers in the deep parts of our brain, and regulated by multiple neurotransmitters. But heroin inhibits the brain centers that control breathing, and after making someone feel calm and sleepy, the respiratory drive will simply shut down. Short of death, heroin can cause an array of serious health conditions, including hepatitis and HIV. Chronic users may suffer from collapsed veins, infections of the heart lining and valves, liver or kidney disease, and pulmonary complications like pneumonia. And, no one is immune. Heroin affects all demographics and professions; men and women and teens of all ages in all parts of the world. That’s the case for addiction in general – you can have it in very rich people, in very poor people, in people who are 20 and people who are 64. It doesn’t discriminate. In other words, stay away from this deadly shit because it can and it may kill you. Why become a statistic of heroin overdose?