first time shooting up heroin.....advice needed.

I have been a IV speed/ice user now for about 4 years and have no problems putting drugs in to my veins. I have recently came accross a circle of people who IV heroin. Now I know for a fact that this is definately not a drug that I want to take on full time. But I have always been interested in trying it at least once.

What I want to know is...

1) How much is a good dose for a beginner (1 or maybe 2 points?)?
2) How long should I expect to be high?
3) Will I develope any form of physical addiction from 1 shot.?
4) Can I expect to get sick?
5) Can you mix it up in the sachet with water or do you need to melt it on a clean spoon?
6) What should I expect to feel straight after the shot?

Any other advice would be much appreciated. The people who I know who use it have been using it for nearly 20 years and haven't died yet which is a bonus

I know absolutely nothing about this topic but I suggest you ask this in the 'Other Drugs' board at the top of BL. They will be able to answer your questions in lots of detail.

Good luck!

Dont do it

yes you can get addicted

dont do it

Start with a 1/4 to1/2 a bag.
Cook it in a spoon w/heat.
High should last 6-8 hours.
You most likely will get sick.
Addiction is dependent on the person.

1) How much is a good dose for a beginner (1 or maybe 2 points?)?
If you know its pure id say half point is enough

2) How long should I expect to be high?
Bout 6 hours

3) Will I develope any form of physical addiction from 1 shot.?
No one knows but i have heaps of friends who are hooked on it in europe

4) Can I expect to get sick?
Depends on the person but u can have slight sick feelings

5) Can you mix it up in the sachet with water or do you need to melt it on a clean spoon?
I would only shoot it if i knew it was pure, but u need to melt it on a spoon.

6) What should I expect to feel straight after the shot?
Euphoria hits u almost instantly, ur body will go warm.

Choose a good spot somewhere where ur comfortable. I wouldnt risk going down that track. If u got pure form then just smoke it with sum green. Let us know how it went and be careful, use ur own needle too.

Howdy Myinnerself,

From the beginning it is good to reiterate that there are three main components that influence a drug using experience commonly referred to as the zinberg model;

Drug- Substance, potency and effects
Set- mindset and body, your general health and well being.
Setting- where you are, how safe you feel, the circumstances in which this event takes place.

A good rule to begin with is that start as small as possible, as you can always top up if required. this also allows you to get an idea of the potency of the substance too. If people are giving you the advice of using a 1/4 use an 1/8 instead. Remember that these are two entirely differnet forms of substances which have different effects and duration

Generally expect about six hours for the durtation, for some people its longer and for some people its shorter. sometimes the length can be determined by the rate the substance is passed out of you body and if there is a positive setting sometimes it may seem like it is going for longer.

Physical dependance can be achieved through the repeated use of a substace, addiction per se is the meaning that you attribute to the subtance. If you find that you enjoy opiates so much that you need to use them on a dailyt basis and have withdrawal syptoms on cessation than that = a physical dependance.

Most people thati have talked to who have been long term herion users still vouch that it takes time and energy to gain a addiction to any substance.

The question about being sick is a little complex; really it depends on physiology to a large degree, how healthy you are the amount you use and your expectations /anxiety about using a substance.

usually i have found that people are either sick on morphine or herion but not usually both. Dr platypus may have a better answer about this.

as for the mixing question im pretty sure that most street grade herion needs to be heated to some degree, use a clean metal spoon that has been sanitised with a steriwipe a few times. Also make sure you have clean injecting equiptment and or use a mirco wheel filter if you get the chance. Most good NSP's will carry these in three different sizes

as for what you can feel well thats also depending on the substance the purity and the setting.
most people feel an initial rush which can last anywhere between 15mins to an hour which can reoccur sometimes in the initial stages if the experience.

Theres alot of old skool cabramatta junkies that I knew who are either dead or in jail and all have hep c ..

People who let their friends prepare the shot and inject it are more at risk of diseases especially if the friend has injected already and may have blood on their fingers as everyone wipes the injection area with their thumb or finger and dont even think of using a alco wipe.

The heroin at the moment is fairly strong especially if its the brown afghan thats around at the moment in sydney but you will have to trust your friends as they will know how strong it is and how much for a newbie to have.

It all depends on how pure the stuff is & how many times its been cut down ... which a regular H user would know..

Lucky I have hated needles since a child so never for me ..

^pretty much spot on Madmick

Myinnerself - firstly, ignore all the advice from non-Aussie posters.

Aussie heroin is almost exclusively HCl salt - will dissolve easily in cold water without heating. If you get some particularly compressed rock then a bit of heat can speed the process, but is not essential. You might find it easier to mull up in a spoon for that reason too.

Sounds like you know how to inject - so I'm not going to give you tedious safer injecting info. Best bet is to use less rather than more first time around - you can always mix up another shot if the first one didn't do it for you.

You will have some degree of cross tolerance if you regularly use other opioids - including morphine, oxycodone, codeine etc. But if you don't use opioids then you will have no tolerance and won't need much at all. To give you an example: I rarely use opioids of any sort. A little while ago, I took 15mg morphine (15mg MS Contin, crushed and taken sublingually) and got pretty wasted. This would be a joke amount to anyone who regularly uses heroin or similar.

SO - I would start off with about 1/5 of a point for your first injection - it's highly unlikely to be too much.

You may vomit, or you may not. It's an ideosyncratic reaction.

You cannot get a habit from 1 shot - but you might want to plan ahead now, and set some ground rules for yourself to keep it all from getting out of hand..

thanks everyone for their advice so far, its been very helpful to me. Im planing on having a shot in about 2 or 3 weeks so I'll let everyone know how it goes. I have a zero tolerence to opiates so Im definately going to start with a small dose like you guys said and then maybe bump a booster after I have guaged its strength. Thanks again everyone.

Take a step back...

Try either snorting or smoking before you poke that stuff in your veins. Especially for someone with no opiate experience whatsoever...

If you insist on shooting up, start with 10mg.

^^^
yeah I thought about snorting it and smoking it, but just like meth shooting it attains the best and quickest high. I always think that snorting meth or smoking it is almost a total waste when you compare it to the feeling of IV'ing it. I'll definately give it some thought though and do a bit of research on both those methods. Thanks.

1 or 2 points is just asking for trouble for someone who has very little opioid tolerance (myself included), as ayjay points out start at an amount you think will be 100% safe, and then halve it again at least. Nothing stopping you from topping up, but plenty stopping you if you are in ICU or dead.

Once again i have to hammer (pardon the pun) home the point about Hep C. I don't know if you know anyone who has contracted it, but it's a horrible disease and so so easily transmissible. One of my friends has spent the best part of ten years battling liver cancer on and off that was a complication of Hep C, she is still alive but her quality of life is non existent.

Be ultra conservative in relation to dosage, and ultra vigilant on the safety aspects!

ayjay said:

You cannot get a habit from 1 shot - but you might want to plan ahead now, and set some ground rules for yourself to keep it all from getting out of hand..

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Hah, good advice, but as some of us know, whatever rules you make now, you'll probably find yourself changing them ever so slightly, and then ever so slightly again, and you'll always be able to find the perfect rationalisation for bending your rules (it's the weekend, it's my birthday, I don't know when I'll be able to score it again, I just got a big stimulus package from the government, I didn't do it last week so I can do it twice or three times this week as long as I don't do it next week or the week after...)

ive found iv anything to be fairly addictive with repeated use and DO IT YOURESELF!! dont let anyone do it for you unless u really trust them and know for a fact theyre good at it and CLEAN

Some related threads.

Correct Needle Width & Syringe Size for Meth IV
Australian IV drugs; safer practices and useful experiences
The Needle Stigma

thanks again everyone, keep the advice coming.

I have found IV drug use to be the most fun and hardest to give up or shake at times. I find that sometimes the best part is mixing up and loading my rig, you get those butterflys in your stomach, than you pick your spot, even the sting from the needle feels good for some weird reason. I've heard people refer to this as being addicted to the steel.

I know for a fact that Im definately only going to do this one time with hammer. Im scared of the repercussions from regular (even eregular use) of this drug. But, Im determined to give all recreational drugs a go at least once. And the heroin box has yet to have a tick in it.

oh yeah I should also mention that I have got my speed habit down to about 1 shot a month. Im more focused on the bongs again and also I'm tapering off my SSRI's and in about 5 to 6 months I'll be back in the pill scene again and Im gonna fuck off speed for good.

my innerself: I've been regularaly shooting smack for about 6 months now. At one point it was wayyy too often for comfort and can happily shoot 1/4 of a gram no sweat, and up to 1.7g between me and a mate in a day.

Ideally with heroin it is probably better to snort first considering you may or may not have an opioid tollerance - it may be better to try something a little lighter first (oxycodone perhaps). As other people said smoke it, well i disagree from experience australian heroin is almost useless to smoke with the amount of cutting agents in it (glucose and the like)

Heroin generally lasts for about 2 hours with the immediate high/peak and probably completely dimishes by the 6hr mark (i'm talking from general experience) And as stated most heroin in australia is no. 4 china white hcl, and will dissolve with little to no effort in cold/outside temp water (preferably use sterile water).

For the size shot you're going to do, 50 units of water would be sufficient, but i'd suggest trying it with a mate first, going halves in a cap (from experience and weighing somewhere around the 50mg mark) and move up from that point. The first time i shot heroin i used this amount, whilst i didnt get a large effect i had already taken a shitload of clonazepam and snorted about 4caps of heroin so was reasonably intoxicated - that said, my friend who had done the same was absolutely wasted, my tollerance came from regular use of oxy.

So take it easy, and give it a shot if your keen, as stated keep clean, and if you can do your own shots, do it. only time i let someone else do me up is if im having trouble hitting a vein and wanna just go for my hand.

melt it on a spoon?

NO

We dont really get the type of heroin you need to cook here in australia.

just mix with water and its ready.

once you have done it its done be warned...its fucking amazing and life can go out the window and priorety number one becomes chasing that first high all over again.

johnnyonelove said:

its good, but its not that good (IMHO).
.

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Some people just have a taste for opiates. I never understood the fascination myself, that is until recently though.

But this is fascinating, I haven't seen dosage information specifically in regards to the heroin available in Australia. Sorely needed information just in case I ever decided to give it a shot... mind the pun.