Heroin Effects

Heroin effects take place quickly. This drug works by depressing the user's central nervous system. It does this by depressing nerve transmission in sensory pathways of the spinal cord and brain that signal pain. This explains why heroin effects work as such an effective pain killer. Heroin effects also inhibit the user's brain centers that control coughing and breathing.

Heroin is a highly addictive drug. Heroin effects take place quickly and produce tolerance and dependence in those who use it. Heroin is even more effective as a painkiller than morphine and codeine. However, since heroin is so highly addictive, the drug is illegal.

Short Term Heroin Effects

• Analgesia (reduced pain)
• Brief euphoria (the "rush" or feeling of well-being)
• Death due to overdose - often the exact purity and content of the drug is not known to the user. An overdose can cause respiration problems and coma
• Hypothermia
• Nausea
• Reduced anxiety
• Reduced coughing
• Reduced respiration; breathing difficulties
• Sedation, drowsiness

Soon after injection (or inhalation), heroin effects cross the blood-brain barrier. In the brain, heroin is converted to morphine and binds rapidly to opioid receptors. Abusers typically report heroin effects as feeling a surge of pleasurable sensation, a "rush." The intensity of the rush is a function of how much drug is taken and how rapidly the drug enters the brain and binds to the natural opioid receptors. Heroin is particularly addictive because it enters the brain so rapidly. With heroin, the rush is usually accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, dry mouth, and a heavy feeling in the extremities, which may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and severe itching.

After the initial heroin effects, abusers will usually be drowsy for several hours. Heroin effects cloud the user's mental function and hinder their central nervous system. Cardiac function slows. Breathing is also severely slowed, sometimes to the point of death. Heroin overdose is a particular risk on the street, where the amount and purity of the drug cannot be accurately known.

Long Term Heroin Effects 

One of the most detrimental long-term heroin effects is drug addiction. Addiction is a characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use. Addiction is brought on by neurochemical and molecular changes in the brain. Heroin also produces profound degrees of tolerance and physical dependence, which are also powerful motivating factors for compulsive use and abuse. As with abusers of any addictive drug, heroin abusers gradually spend more and more time and energy obtaining and using the drug. Once they are addicted, the heroin abusers' primary purpose in life becomes seeking and using drugs. The drugs literally change their brains.

Other Heroin Effects

• Collapsed veins
• Hepatitis - liver damage
• HIV/AIDS - due to sharing of needles
• Increase risk of stroke
• Lung infections
• Other bacterial and viral infections
• Poisoning - from the addition of toxin to the drug
• Skin infections - from repeated intravenous injections

Heroin effects cause serious medical consequences due to chronic heroin abuse. These medical consequences include scarred and/or collapsed veins, bacterial infections of the blood vessels and heart valves, abscesses (boils) and other soft-tissue infections, and liver or kidney disease. Lung complications (including various types of pneumonia and tuberculosis) may result from the poor health condition of the abuser as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration. Many of the additives in street heroin may include substances that do not readily dissolve and result in clogging the blood vessels that lead to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain. This can cause infection or even death of small patches of cells in vital organs. Immune reactions to these or other contaminants can cause arthritis or other rheumatologic problems.

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