The National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted a study in 2008 and results showed an increase in heroin users, aged 12 or older, from 153,000 in 2007 to an astonishing 213,000 in 2008. With statistics like that, it’s easy to understand the growing rate of heroin addiction in South Florida as well as in the rest of the United States.
Synthesized from morphine and generally appearing as white or brown powder, heroin is a seriously addictive opiate drug. Regardless of how one ingests it, be it by injection, snorting or smoking – all three methods rapidly deliver a high dose of toxins to the brain with the potential of severe health problems down the road.
As soon as heroin hits the brain, it reverts back to morphine and binds itself to opioid receptors. With many of these receptors located throughout the brain and body, heroin targets areas involved in the perception of pain and reward. Because some of the receptors are located in the brain stem where life processes such as blood pressure and breathing are located, many heroin overdoses involve suppression of respiration.
Regular use of heroin results in some level of tolerance leading the user’s psychological and physiological responses to decrease. Consequently, an increase in heroin is needed to achieve the same effect felt at the beginning.
It is estimated that 23 percent of individuals who use heroin have become dependent on it. Thankfully there are many inpatient and outpatient treatment centers throughout the area and the Delray Center for Healing is one.
