Health Risks of Heroin
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Health Risks of Heroin

Heroin use and abuse is associated with serious health conditions, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

Short Term Health Risks and Effects

Heroin Health RisksSome users describe the initial effects of heroin as a rush that lasts only one or two minutes that is said to be caused by the injected heroin bathing the brain before it gets distributed by the bloodstream and changed into a more useable form of morphine. This "rush" effect is often glorified as a heightened sexual orgasm, and a great relief of tension, which pervades the abdomen. After the rush, the high lasts for four or five hours and is caused by the morphine diffusing from the bloodstream into the brain. It is described as a warm, drowsy, cozy state. Addicts report a profound sense of satisfaction, as though all needs were fulfilled. There is also a pleasant state of mild dizziness that is not as impairing as alcohol's effects, and a sense of 'distancing' or apathy toward whatever is going on in the environment. Eventually addicts lose this effect of euphoria, and use heroin only to relieve unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. It is estimated that about 23 percent of individuals who use heroin become dependent on it.

The health risks of heroin can be extremely serious and sometimes deadly. Such risks include fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, and the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis to the users who inject heroin intravenously. Heavy heroin addiction can effect the heart lining and valves and can cause abscesses, collapsed veins, and liver or kidney disease. Respiratory complications, such as different types of pneumonia may also develop caused by heroin’s depressing effects on respiration. Additionally, street heroin often contains toxic additives and contaminants that can clog blood vessels leading to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain, causing permanent damage to vital organs.

Long Term Health Risks and Effects

Continued or long term heroin use causes the person to develop a tolerance to the drug. This means that as the body becomes used to the effects of heroin where higher doses are needed in order to produce the same effect. The addicts dose increases more and more which in turn greatly increases the health risks caused by heroin. Continued heroin use causes physical dependence where the body adapts to the presence of the drug and withdrawal symptoms occur if use is reduced abruptly. Heroin withdrawal may occur within a few hours after the last time the drug is taken. Symptoms of withdrawal include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps ("cold turkey"), and involuntary leg movements ("kicking" the habit). Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 24 and 48 hours after the last dose of heroin and subside after about a week. However, some people have shown persistent withdrawal signs for many months. Heroin withdrawal is very rarely fatal to otherwise healthy adults, but it can cause death to the fetus of a pregnant addict.

One of the the most destructive effects of heroin addiction, other than overdose and death, would be the addiction to heroin itself. As the degree of the heroin addiction increases, behaviors such as lying, cheating, stealing, missing work, financial problems, and legal issues all become very serious effects that destroy the addicts life as well as for everyone associated to the heroin addict.


Health Risks of Heroin
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Heroin Facts

  • At some point during continuous heroin use, a person can become addicted to the drug. Sometimes addicted individuals will endure many of the withdrawal symptoms to reduce their tolerance for the drug so that they can again experience the rush. Physical dependence and the emergence of withdrawal symptoms were once believed to be the key features of heroin addiction. We now know this may not be the case entirely, since craving and relapse can occur weeks and months after withdrawal symptoms are long gone. We also know that patients with chronic pain who need opiates to function (sometimes over extended periods) have few if any problems leaving opiates after their pain is resolved by other means. This may be because the patient in pain is simply seeking relief of pain and not the rush sought by the addict.
  • What are the medical complications of chronic heroin use? Medical consequences of chronic heroin injection use 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. Sharing of injection equipment or fluids can lead to some of the most severe consequences of heroin abuse- infections with hepatitis B and C, HIV, and a host of other bloodborne viruses, which drug abusers can then pass on to their sexual partners and children.
  • How does heroin abuse affect pregnant women? Heroin abuse during pregnancy and its many associated environmental factors (e.g., lack of prenatal care) have been associated with adverse consequences including low birth weight, an important risk factor for later developmental delay. Methadone maintenance combined with prenatal care and a comprehensive drug treatment program can improve many of the detrimental maternal and neonatal outcomes associated with untreated heroin abuse, although infants exposed to methadone during pregnancy typically require treatment for withdrawal symptoms.
  • In the United States, several studies have found buprenorphine to be equally effective and as safe as methadone in the adult outpatient treatment of opioid dependence. Given this efficacy among adults, current studies are attempting to establish the safety and effectiveness of buprenorphine in opioid-dependent pregnant women. For women who do not want or are not able to receive pharmacotherapy for their heroin addiction, detoxification from opiates during pregnancy can be accomplished with relative safety, although the likelihood of relapse to heroin use should be considered.
  • Why are heroin users at special risk for contracting HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B and C? Heroin users are at risk for contracting HIV, hepatitis C (HCV), and other infectious diseases, through sharing and reuse of syringes and injection paraphernalia that have been used by infected individuals, or through unprotected sexual contact with an infected person. Injection drug users (IDUs) represent the highest risk group for acquiring HCV infection; an estimated 70 to 80 percent of the 35,000 new HCV infections occurring in the United States each year are among IDUs.
  • NIDA-funded research has found that heroin and other drug abusers can change the behaviors that put them at risk for contracting HIV through drug abuse treatment, prevention, and community-based outreach programs. They can eliminate drug use, drug-related risk behaviors such as needle sharing, unsafe sexual practices, and, in turn, the risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Drug abuse prevention and treatment are highly effective in preventing the spread of HIV.