what does smoking heroin do to your lungs?

[hydroazuanacaine]

is it a lot worse than snorting it or smoking weed (for your throat and lungs)? any horror stories about that roa? i'm talking about the greyish white chunks we get in the midwest usa, if that makes a difference.

thanks

 

[Jabberwocky]

There are different types of heroin, but basically is what you have tar or powder? Sometimes tar comes dried, but when exposed to room temp air moisture collects on it and it begins to get a little un-powdery if that makes any sense. It is pretty uncommon in my experience to get the right kind of non-tar powder heroin that is mean for smoking in the US (it is more common in the UK). Basically, if what you have is smokable, chances are it is tar (though I have limited experience using heroin from the midwest, so YMMV).

The dangers from "smoking" (technically vaping) heroin come more from burning the tinfoil or other particulates that are infused with the tinfoil as it is created when you add heat to them necessary to vaporize heroin, which leads to their combusting on the tinfoil and being inhaled along with the heroin vapor itself. Smoking heroin is an art few people learn to perfect - and generally by the time they do they are deep enough into their dependency to where other ROA become more attractive. Heroinhelper.com used to have a good section on how to smoke it properly, I don't know if that site is still around.

Plugging and waterlining (water-lining is mixing the heroin, assuming it is tar or water soluble powder, with warm/room temp water and then squirting it up your nostrils - either letting it sit there after letting it drip into your nose while you laying on your back or using a Visine type container to spray the heroin in solution into your nose as a kind of mist/spray) are a bit safer and more efficient IME than smoking heroin.

Smoking heroin probably isn't worse than snorting it, but I would say that there are fewer risks associated with snorting it than smoking it technically speaking (or at least the if relatively uncommon risk associated with smoking it, which again is more an issue of the tinfoil than the heroin itself). I would say it isn't any more harmful to your lungs than smoking cannabis, but that is mostly because you are consuming less heroin smoke than cannabis smoke (generally speaking).

However, the dangers associated with addiction and the lifestyle of heroin use are much more dangerous than those associated with the lifestyle involved in smoking cannabis. It's the stigma surrounding heroin that kills much more often than the drug itself.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

thanks for the reply, toothpastedog.

reason i'm smoking is i keep accidentally doing too much and throwing up when i snort. which is annoying. the stuff i have is weird and not what i prefer, but becoming common around here. it's like real hard. i need a razor to break a piece off. it's definitely smokable and i have no trouble getting high as fuck with it. just don't want to be doing any damage beyond the typical heroin addiction risk.

that run a lighter over the shiny side first and then smoke off the dull side true or urban legend? is there something safer to use other than foil?

guess what i really need to do is not heroin. not sure what's wrong with me. once i finish this piece i'll be done.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Honestly there is some truth to that urban legend, but it's been so long I forget the deal with it. Basically, if you're just smoking very small amounts, you should be okay. I never was able to smoke heroin properly off anything but tinfoil. It can be tricky doing it by yourself, because you have to control so many variables (how close the flame is to the foil, the angle of the foil, the tube in your mouth, etc). It's all practice.

Sounds like you have some variation of tar. Can you crush it up and snort it? It might work to mix it with something like diphenhydramine to make the stuff a little weaker so it is easier to snort without using too much and getting sick.

Nothing is wrong with you hydro, heroin feels good. What is wrong is with the world. If you had more in your life you felt more connect with, you wouldn't have nearly as much desire to use something like heroin. Connection - not abstinence - is the opposite of addiction (and I'm not necessarily saying your addicted, just using it as a frame of reference).

I'll ALWAYS reply to your posts comrade hydro! XXXX

 

[MethAbuser]

Seriously you should dab with a glass nail. Smoking off aluminum bad news. toxic metals create oxidative stress on the body and aluminum is one of the worst offenders. The prevailing belief from scientist around the world is that aluminum is linked to degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. there is research showing that aluminum leeches into food when you cook with aluminum foil at levels above the limits set by the World Health organization. Aluminum pans are less of a problem because repeatedly using them oxidizes the aluminum but truthfully I'm staying away from it. Better safe than sorry

 

[keeping]

god i get the worst swamp-lung from tooting UK no. 3 smack.
if i'm on for a couple of weeks i can hear my lungs bubbling and rattlign and i cough up pure black phlegm
looks like black jellyfish its nasty af dread to think whats going on in there some primordial ocean lolling about in me

 

[falsifiedhypothesi]

Aluminum foil is not coated with anything, the shiny side and dull side are due to the process of pulling it through machines.

Although aluminum does vaporize at a low temperature compared to other metals, the oxide layer that forms when it's exposed to air helps prevent this but depending on what heat source you use you might inhale some aluminum vapor which is not good for your health.

 

[Phil.McKeer]

Seriously you should dab with a glass nail. Smoking off aluminum bad news. toxic metals create oxidative stress on the body and aluminum is one of the worst offenders. The prevailing belief from scientist around the world is that aluminum is linked to degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. there is research showing that aluminum leeches into food when you cook with aluminum foil at levels above the limits set by the World Health organization. Aluminum pans are less of a problem because repeatedly using them oxidizes the aluminum but truthfully I'm staying away from it. Better safe than sorry

This x1000. I am still dumbfounded that the knowledge that tar can be smoked off a titanium nail in a bong isn't widespread by now. The best way to inhale vaped H without exception. Only, watch out for your tolerance. The first few days will be awesome but once your body gets used to taking in 5x the amount of vapor per inhalation, the tolerance will start to skyrocket.

One thing that wasn't mentioned - heroin is highly water soluble. Dry fire the bong, don't fill it with water. You'll lose some percentage (don't know how much, but any is too much with The Preciousness) in the water if you do. The smoke isn't acrid and I acquired a taste to it when I was using H so water is unnecessary anyways. The only drawback is that you'll get H resin caked everywhere in your bong (whereas if it had water at least the bottom would stay clean and only the rigging would get resinated) but that's not a big deal. On the plus side, when you're out of dope and starting to hurt, if you've been using the bong for a while you can actually vaporize the resin in it with the same torch you use to heat your nail.

Now - I'm not sure if what you have is tar but I think it is, being from the midwest which if I understand correctly gets both ECP and Mexican tar, and you said that the stuff you have is a hard chunk/rock that needs to be cut with a razor, which sounds like hard tar (tar comes in every kind of consistency you could imagine from goopy to rock hard and even powder, albeit the powder form of tar quickly reconstitutes into solid tar once it hits the moisture of open air, or when breathed on).

While I am certain that tar can be vaporized in this manner, I'm not sure on the other types of H like ECP (never had it) or Euro dope (which comes, as I hear, in multiple forms, some bases, some salts of diacetylmorphine). I don't know the boiling point of any of these other forms of dope so do some due diligence before you try to smoke it - it might not work (like trying to smoke cocaine without freebasing it first).

PS - To actually answer your question, OP (lol) - I smoked tar for about two years at the rate of at least 1g/day, sometimes 2g's if I had the cash. The worst that ever happened is I started getting tons of lung butter to loogie up, and one batch of badly cut dope made my voice all scratchy after a single hit, but that's all. I don't think it is particularly harmful in comparison to tobacco or cannabis, both of which have high levels of tar in their smoke.

 

[Rachella666]

8 months of smoking & I was diagnosed with emphysema early stage. I'm on 2 inhalers & I wheeze an awful lot, cough up phlegm etc.....
At the start I used to burn the shiny side first but then I couldn't be bothered.
It's smoking, it's inhaling shit into your lungs, of course it's gonna do some damage, but I'm not sure if it's on par with smoking weed with tobacco, that's just as bad I hope you're OK OP

 

[Gorillaboy21]

Wow my friend smokes and I shoot cause when I first got hooked on h I smoked it only for 3 months and I would wake up coughing up shit I knew bad news , especially since opiates are cough suppressants that's double whammy .
My friend went to the doctor and he gave him a serious warning saying he has almost emphysema I thought it was a joke that he was scaring him into quitting , but when my friend laughs you hear the wheezing in his voice and it's always like that 100% of the time he talks and I hate it I tell him to shut up lol cause it makes me gag hearing that raspy goo in his voice gargling when he speaks ewwwww , and when I told people shooting is healthier than smoking cause at least you get to filter some out and cook it but smoking you add the foil also into the mix and you're inhaling all the cut always

 

[Jabberwocky]

Seriously you should dab with a glass nail. Smoking off aluminum bad news. toxic metals create oxidative stress on the body and aluminum is one of the worst offenders. The prevailing belief from scientist around the world is that aluminum is linked to degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. there is research showing that aluminum leeches into food when you cook with aluminum foil at levels above the limits set by the World Health organization. Aluminum pans are less of a problem because repeatedly using them oxidizes the aluminum but truthfully I'm staying away from it. Better safe than sorry

This x1000. I am still dumbfounded that the knowledge that tar can be smoked off a titanium nail in a bong isn't widespread by now. The best way to inhale vaped H without exception. Only, watch out for your tolerance. The first few days will be awesome but once your body gets used to taking in 5x the amount of vapor per inhalation, the tolerance will start to skyrocket.

One thing that wasn't mentioned - heroin is highly water soluble. Dry fire the bong, don't fill it with water. You'll lose some percentage (don't know how much, but any is too much with The Preciousness) in the water if you do. The smoke isn't acrid and I acquired a taste to it when I was using H so water is unnecessary anyways. The only drawback is that you'll get H resin caked everywhere in your bong (whereas if it had water at least the bottom would stay clean and only the rigging would get resinated) but that's not a big deal. On the plus side, when you're out of dope and starting to hurt, if you've been using the bong for a while you can actually vaporize the resin in it with the same torch you use to heat your nail.

Now - I'm not sure if what you have is tar but I think it is, being from the midwest which if I understand correctly gets both ECP and Mexican tar, and you said that the stuff you have is a hard chunk/rock that needs to be cut with a razor, which sounds like hard tar (tar comes in every kind of consistency you could imagine from goopy to rock hard and even powder, albeit the powder form of tar quickly reconstitutes into solid tar once it hits the moisture of open air, or when breathed on).

While I am certain that tar can be vaporized in this manner, I'm not sure on the other types of H like ECP (never had it) or Euro dope (which comes, as I hear, in multiple forms, some bases, some salts of diacetylmorphine). I don't know the boiling point of any of these other forms of dope so do some due diligence before you try to smoke it - it might not work (like trying to smoke cocaine without freebasing it first).

PS - To actually answer your question, OP (lol) - I smoked tar for about two years at the rate of at least 1g/day, sometimes 2g's if I had the cash. The worst that ever happened is I started getting tons of lung butter to loogie up, and one batch of badly cut dope made my voice all scratchy after a single hit, but that's all. I don't think it is particularly harmful in comparison to tobacco or cannabis, both of which have high levels of tar in their smoke.

Thank you two for explaining this. Good to know there is an alternative, as well as what the deal is with aluminum!

 

[Phil.McKeer]

Connection - not abstinence - is the opposite of addiction

I just wanted to quote this for added emphasis. This is the truth - lack of social, emotional, and personal connection is the invisible hand that drives most problematic drug (ab)use.

Thanks for putting that out there, TPD.

Sorry I've gone OT on your thread, OP, I just thought this was worth it to quote for...uh...posterity.

 

[spacejunk]

it's a great quote. i love it, thanks for emphasising that again for me too

(further apologies for more slightly off-topic chatterings)