Forgive my lack of knowledge on this but after doing some research on this shit something sort of hit me.
The purity levels of this stuff can vary GREATLY. So how does a user know if they're getting 10% or 90%? It's obviously an important factor as, from what I gather, this shit is WAY less forgiving than, say, Cocaine for example.
Interestingly enough (this just a side note and according the DEA): purity levels on the street actually rose at some point some years back for the oddest of reasons i.e. to make it more appealing to a greater user base and to give it more bang for those that would only snort the stuff (those not willing to IV). Fact or fiction?
Was this just general research or from an Australian perspective?
In my experience, in Australia, the purity level can vary, but it doesn't seem like it varies enormously, this is just subjective experience though.
Here's the thing... If heroin really did just jump around from 10% to 90% and back without warning, yes that'd almost certainly be a major problem, it seems impossible to believe otherwise.
But in practice, and again this is just my personal experience (though i strongly suspect this is the case most other places), heroin purity tends to be pretty strongly related to the cost. And in reality doesn't jump all over the place.
And more importantly, while purity does indeed vary, it's more like it jumps around within a 20%ish range very occasionally not an 80% range all the time.
I have never, not once, ever, had a shot that felt even so much as triple as good as another similarly priced shot, even with noticeably different heroin.
When you first start using, either from naive or from a period of sobriety, that's the danger period, because it's at that point when a sudden jump in purity can be quite risky. Also it's just very easy not to correctly judge how much you need.
Once you have a decent tolerance... In practice, there's gonna be a general purity level where you live, or at least there always has been where l
I've lived. Maybe a couple heroins that have a roughly relative pricing by perceived quality. You've just not gonna get someone selling you heroin they could be selling for 9 times the price if only they knew they could. In my experience it doesn't happen.
Quality fluctuates but not nearly to that kinda degree. And once you have a tolerance, not to a degree likely to be dangerous. I'll be honest I rarely tested heroin with a small shot first. Sometimes but that was more to check my tolerance when it might have dropped than the heroins strength.
I kinda throw this in with those bs concerns non heroin users repeat, like dealers cutting with rat poison or some shit. Something that might happen on extremely rare occasions but is by no means common. There are risks but in my experience this isn't one of them very often. At least not in Australia.