Tweaking by the Needle Box:

This poor addict may stare at the ground for hours looking for some lost drugs. The needle drop box just quite can’t handle the 18,000 needles that are discarded monthly in Vancouver’s drug-riddled Downtown Eastside.

Long-Term Effects:

*Those snorting or smoking heroin can overdose: death may ensue without the use of a needle

*Irreversible effects include fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, collapsed veins, and infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis

*Long-term effects of heroin include collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves, abscesses, cellulitis, and liver disease

*Pulmonary complications, including various types of pneumonia, may result from the poor health condition of the abuser, as well as from heroin's depressing effects on respiration

*Impurities, often from the ‘cutting’ agent or ‘buff’ used to decrease drug strength, results in clogged blood vessels leading to the lungs, liver, kidneys, or brain

*Infections and organ damage are common

Dragon Burns:

Heroin is commonly smoked on tin foil. ‘Chasing the dragon’ (smoking the heroin vapor trail) does not have the stigma that using the needle does. Heroin is heroin, no matter how it goes into the body.

Short-Term Effects:

*Users feel a surge of euphoria ("rush") accompanied by a warm flushing of the skin, a dry mouth, and heavy extremities

*Following this initial euphoria, the user goes ‘on the nod’, an alternately wakeful and drowsy state

*Mental functioning becomes clouded due to the depression of the central nervous system

*Effects disappear in a few hours

Drug Flaps:

Paper ‘flaps’ of powdered cocaine are often purchased for injection use.