Heroin Essay
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Heroin
It was a sunny June morning in 1996. Jimmy Chaimberlin walked into Jonathan Melvoin s hotel room. He found him lying unconscious in his bed and rushed to dial 911. Despite his quick reaction, when the paramedics arrived, they pronounced Melvoin dead at 4:00 a.m. on June 20, 1996. This is just one of
the many fatalities that heroin causes every year and it could happen to you. In fact, heroin controls the lives of over 70,000 people in the US alone. Heroin is three times more potent than morphine, which is also derived from the opium poppy (Papaver Somniferum). Sumerians know it as Hul Gil, or the flower
of joy . Today, this drug attracts people from all walks of life. The poor and rich and famous, the young and old are all addicted to heroin and the numbers rise every year. Although many people are using heroin, white males age 18-25 are the most likely to become addicted. These aren t the only dangers and
facts of this drug, the list goes on and on. Some facts have to do with it s origin, effects, and how to treat an addiction.
Although many people know roughly where heroin comes from, not as many know how it is transformed from a flower to an illegal street drug. The entire metamorphosis starts with the opium poppy plant. This flower is grown chiefly by impoverished farmers in remote regions of the world. The opium poppy flourishes in the dry, warm climates of countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Laos and Colombia. After three months, the flower s petals fall away, exposing an egg-shaped seed pod. The opaque, milky sap is extracted from the seed pod by slitting it vertically in parallel cuts with a special curved knife. When the sap oozes out, it forms a thick, brownish-black gum which is then bundled into bricks, cakes or balls and wrapped in plastic or leaves. From here, the opium goes back into the black market where it s bought by merchants or brokers for transport to a morphine refinery, which are usually little more than a small neglected laboratory hidden in a jungle thicket. The opium is mixed with lime in boiling water until a white band of morphine is formed on the surface of the mixture. This is then reheated with ammonia, filtered and boiled again until it is reduced to a brown paste. The paste is next poured into molds and dried in the sun. The fourth stage of purification involves ether and hydrochloric acid. This stage is extremely risky since, if the chemist is not careful, the gas may ignite and cause a violent explosion. The end result is a fluffy, white powder, known in the trade as number four heroin. Heroin peddlers on the street will sell this powder in small bags ranging in price from $5 to $100. Of course, the higher the purity of the heroin inside, the more expensive the bag will be. Instead of being beneficial to the user, though, the purity can be very dangerous because the effects are stronger. The purity of street heroin used to be less than 5% pure because it would be cut from 20 to hundreds of times with many other substances before it gets to the buyer. Some substances heroin is cut with are sugar, starch, powdered milk or quinine. It is also sometimes cut with strychnine which is a poison. Other drugs are also added to heroin before it gets sold on the streets, such as marijuana and cocaine. When marijuana is cut with heroin, it is often called atom bomb , cocaine and heroin are generally called dynamite , speedball or goofball . Heroin also has it s own street terms, such as ack, birdie powder, George Smack, heroina or scag. Now, the heroin...
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