Opioids and their derivatives are psychoactive drugs that bind to opioid receptors in the brain. In the medical community opioids are used for pain control, and they are the most potent analgesics available. There are many types of opioids but the prototypical opioid used for pain management is morphine.
The most commonly abused type of opioid is heroin. Heroin is a derivative of morphine, it is diacetylmorphine. Morphine is acetylated in laboratories to produce Heroin. It is used in the medical community to control pain. It is used quite extensively in the U.K. for this purpose. There are numerous recreational users of heroin. They use it for the intense euphoria and relaxation it produces.
Heroin has many recreational users due to the feelings of euphoria and relaxation it produces. However, tolerance to the drug develops rapidly. This requires users to use larger and larger doses to achieve the same effects. People use heroin rather than morphine because of the intensity of its effects and the very intense rush that users experience.
There is a real possibility of death related to an accidental overdose of heroin. Since heroin is not legal and it can be mixed with other ingredients prior to getting into the hands of a user, users are never sure of the potency of the heroin they are taking. Heroin is frequently cut with starch,sugar, quinine, and at times even with poisons such as strychnine. Since the potency of the heroin being used is not known, there is a strong possibility that an overdose or death will occur.
Habitual heroin users will often share needles and other paraphernalia with other users. This practice often leads them to contract diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV. It is estimated that three quarters of new Hepatitis C infections in the United States are the result of street drugs that are injected.
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