h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A625349

Nothing in the guide yet on this topic, and there probably should be.

An interesting subject.

In the paragraph that starts 'heroin was first extracted,' you don't need that bit in quotes. I'd just rephrase it in your own words. The link isn't necisary either. I'd also capitalize Heroin in the first sentence.

The link to the Lenny Bruce article will probably be reomved since it's not an edited entry.

I think you're overusing quotes in general. The quotes that you're using at the end of paragraphs might be better used as subheaders to introduce didfferent aspects of the drug.

Heroin is molecularly near identical to morphine, and is metabolised in the body in the same way. If you take morphine the first step in the metabolic process is that it turns it into heroin and it is passes down to the next step.

Interesting also how all the soldiers coming back from World Wars addicted to morphine were never found on the streets suffering and stealing to support their habit. The government just kept giving it to them, problem solved. Prohibition kills people, not the chemical (IMHO). Maybe you could mention this a tiny bit to get a good debate going.

I was under the impression that morphene was more addictive.

One interesting note is that most of the opium derivitives were developed as pain mecications. They then went terribly wrong.

COme to think of it, the sytinge was first developed to inject heroin.

Perhaps some information on different methods of getting the drug into the body. Your use of the terms "high" and "higher" is pretty ambigous.

Good starter for 10 ... absolutly agree that the guide should have something on the subject.

Heroin is the same as Diamorphine is a commonly used drug in the treatment of severe pain.

One of the reasons that the soldiers coming back trucked up on morphine weren't fully adicted is due to the way that the body treats Heroin.

If they you are in extreme pain, Heroin (and morphine) act on the body's pain receptors. If the body is not in pain they are absorbed and processesd at different sites (I'm afraid I can't remember which ones ... anybody able to help). It is this second route, when the body is not in pain that is adictive.

Kit

Um... people get addicted to morphine in hospitals all the time... are they not in pain?

*rse! I was planning to do one on morphine, but never really got round to it - a few tennis players got in the way... Ah well - never mind Procrastination has its downsides.... je suppose...

Will have a look at the entry later

Stay ,
WD

note: most of the serious problems (except the addiction) are due to the stuff that "street heroin" is usually cut with. examples of cutting agents incude baking powder, curry powder, brick dust, etc. these contaminants are what cause the problems of leg ulcerations, etc.

Also, recent research shows that most of the problems associated with heroin are not due to the drug itself.

the stealing/prostitution is due to being addicted to a drug that you can only get expensively. this does not occcur with rich addicts.

the addiction itself is partly due to habituation, just like when a smoker reaches automatically for a fag after meals.

the lack of methods for geting of heroin (and other addictive drugs) is due to thelack of proper funding for treatment centres. it does not look good for a government to be giving away drugs andclean needles at the same time as they are promoting a hard-line policy on drugs.

There is plenty of talk about a "gateway" drug, which leads people into becoming hard drug addicts. this has been found to exist, and contrary to popular belief, it is not canabis, but is nicotine, which causes fundamental changes in brain chemistry which makes you prone to addictive behaviours generally.

I've noticed that some of the references overlap. for instance 'The plant of joy', as well as having its own reference, is in at least two other websites (I didn't check all of them).

I wonder if it might be helpful to put something about the social implications, rather than leaving it to the references. For instance, why do people take up heroin?

The article begs some questions. How many people currently take it and what are the predictions for the future? What course of action would be most beneficial for society to take?

As an aside, given that the brain processes things always in the positive and not in the negative (as in try not to think of a blue giraffe) asking people *not* to take heroin may not be the best way to affect behaviour. If it was phrased in the positive, eg 'leave H well alone', or some such other phrase may work better.

If you do decide to rearrange your entry, it may be worth dividing it into sections with either headings or subheadings for ease of reading.

I hope this is helpful.

Something that I found quite informative on heroin (and other drugs) was Nick Davies articles in The Guardian. I can't link here, but on my newly started 'links in conversations' page here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A651296
...there are, er, links.

I also recently read that heroin was originally thought to be a way to wean opium addicts away from their addiction (in a similar way that methadone does for heroin) but, obviously, the theory was wrong.

I'm very skeptical of any claims being made for nicotine at the moment, as there is pan-governmental policy of condemning it, rightly or wrongly.

I don't believe in "addictive behaviour" per-se. It stinks of pop-psychology. People who become addicted to alcohol or heroin, for example, are either over-rich and idle and get too much of it or are trying to fill some gap in their lives. Hence the high incidence of dependency on these two drugs amongs the homeless and dispossessed.

"are trying to fill some gap in their lives"

This was what I was referring to in the homeless and dispossessed comment, just so you don't read the whole thing and go "eh?"

So is there such a thing as a casual heroin user?

yes there was. during the vietnam war, both heroin and cocain were easily available, and thus regularly used to relieve the bordom.

When the soldiers returned, they stopped almost imediately, with no significant problems.

this is partly due to the "recreational use", partly due to the lesser availability, but mainly because the social environment where they took the drug no longer existed.

interestingly, if you do the same thing to ordinary heroin addicts, taking them out of the environment where they traditionally use the drug, they do not reuse.

if you then take them back to their ordinary environment, with no de-habituation, they can slip back into regular usage trivially.

someone mentions earlier that they are sceptical of the nicotine result, due to the current government stance on the drug, but the result in question comes from a set of brain research looking at the neurochemistry of addicts to drugs, food, gambling, etc trying to see if there was any measurable difference between addicts and the normal population.

They were very surprised to find that their sample population split primarily into 3 groups. smokers who were addicted to something else, smokers that were only addicted to smoking, and non-smokers. while not a totally clean break between the three groups, they were fairly tighly clustered in each group.

they were even more surprised to find when comparing the neurochemistry that the smokers and addicts had a similar biochemical and also neural change in their brainsthat the non-sokers did not have.

If they had been researching smokers, I might haveaggreed with your scepticism, butthey were as surprised atthe result as you seem to be.

Another problem with street drugs like Herion is that if you are used to getting stuff that is crap (IE cut with something) it isn't the crap that kills you (although it will cause many minor health issues) but instead that one time you get good quality stuff you OD.

You can't depend on quality at all. I had to commit a kid a couple of weeks ago who bought some bad marijuana. He went completely nuts. He's back home now, but the shrink said they had some people die as a result of the marijuana from the same source.

Unlikely any cannaboid did that... maybe they dusted it with PCP...

Thank you very much for all the comments, I realise that this is a big topic and needs better coverage than has been done so far. Someone said that they had thought of doing an entry on opiates - perhaps if we collaborate we could use this entry on heroin covering more the social aspects and the opiates entry covering in detail how the drug works, the plant its extracted from and more of the history. I'm under the impression that injecting heroin is a different kettle of fish to munching poppies, but am fairly illinformed on that one.

I know of one or two 'casual users' but there seems to me to be a very high proprotion of addicts with big lifestyle difficulties on this drug - more so than say coke, hash or alcohol.

Perhaps this should be a university project or go to the writing workshop?

Redbootz

the reason for the lifestyle difficulties is mainly due to the cost, impurities, and other similar problems.

due to the current illegality of this drug, you often have to have serious problems before you find people who can get you any. on top of this, when you become addicted, it often costs more than you can afford to maintain the habit, and so your lifestyle goes downhill drastically.

having said that, if you are a serious drunk, similar things happen, due to that fact that in both cases, ensuring a continuing supply of the drug becomes the main goal in life.

after this point, anyone's lifestyle rapidly goes down the tubes.