Opioids Is heroin much more addictive than pills?

[AvenaSativa]

I was always under the impression that heroin was much more addictive than pills. Like it's a whole other world, like you get the same opiate affect it's just intense beyond belief. But then I read the "Should I Try Heroin" megathread and that one guy said people switch to heroin because it's cheaper than pills and it's also more addictive because it's cheaper. So how much more powerful and psychologically addictive is heroin than pills?

Also is it normal to spend the whole next day sick as a dog after someone who has no opiate dependency takes an entire strip of suboxone?

 

[The Doc.]

The reason he said that is because the two drugs are interchangeable meaning if your addicted to pills and can't find them or they are too expensive then heroin will satisfy your cravings just fine. Heroin is generally more euphoric than pills are so many argue its much more addictive psychologically but that can be up for debate everyone's experience varies. But if getting good quality heroin you can get a huge tolerance very quickly due to the fact the supply is usually unlimited(its always available) and much cheaper. It starts off cheaper but most addicts start using bigger amounts which jack up their tolerance giving them a very nasty habit. Part of the reason heroin is so euphoric is the fact it undergoes a conversion in the brain into a type of morphine. This special "rush" heroin is known to give users is believed to be from this conversion to morphine in the brain. Heroin actually only has a half life of a few minutes then it converts to morphine which is why drug tests, test for morphine when looking for evidence of heroin use.

Also if you don't have a very large tolerance to opiates then yes using a whole strip of Suboxone is too much! Try using 1mg next time even a half mg may do you good. Suboxone is very strong I made the mistake of giving my opiate naive friend 3 mgs to crush up and snort and he was extremely high for the night but also spent the next 2 days in bed puking while still high, unable to feel his face or anything. Suboxone is not to be taken lightly its a very powerful opioid. When given to opiate naive people in a hospital setting for pain its usually given in microgram doses of 0.2-0.4 mgs every 4-6 hours. The larger 2 and 8mg strengths only came out for keeping heroin addicts with a huge tolerance out of withdrawal and able to live a normal life. Somebody who isn't a heroin addict should never take a whole strip its a very dangerous practice to do so.

 

[StigmaShadow]

In my experience (as an off/on addict) addiction is completely up to the user. I have NEVER been addicted to any opiate, and have NEVER been in opiate withdrawal because I know I should not use drugs that make me euphoric everday (eventually I'll fuck this plan up). I have used heroin only a handful of times and it was good, but its just not addictive to me. Also when I did I lived in a very large city where it was plentiful, but now I live in a small town full of pills. My first time trying MDPV I was hooked after the first shot. (I know its not what we're talking about but) There was no turning back. I literally could not stop putting the shit in my arms, I had no control. If I had the means to find it now I wouldn't be typing this. Sad isn't it? BTW I've been clean from "molly" for almost 2 years. I couldn't tell the difference from an Avinza 60 and a good shot of white H, except for the pins and needles. I think it comes down to if the user has an addictive personality, and if addiction runs in their family.

A whole strip of suboxone is WAY too much. I sometimes use sub (recreationally) and only do 2mg, which keeps me high into the next morning. By sick I guess you mean vomiting, nausea. (these are common side effects to most opiates, and with suboxone having such a long half life, you may experience them into the next day)

 

[wezface]

I think they are physically the same, since it's the same base substance that's binding to those receptors in your brain. However, I think the ritual and culture associated with heroin due to its illegal status is at least as addicting, psychologically, as the substance itself. I am addicted to needles, I know that. And there's a rush that you get when you're scoring that is also psychologically addictive.

 

[wezface]

Classic operant conditioning... the less time between the action and the physical response, the stronger the mental and physical bond/addiction becomes. This make sense? It makes a lot of sense to me now.
So ROA/ritual+instantaneous reward = more addictive. yes?

 

[burn out]

Not really, I mean I like norcors more than heroin and when it comes to IV I dont think IV heroin is all that much more addictive than IV hydromorphone although I do prefer heroin over hydromorphone.

 

[AgonyAndEcstasy781]

Classic operant conditioning... the less time between the action and the physical response, the stronger the mental and physical bond/addiction becomes. This make sense? It makes a lot of sense to me now.
So ROA/ritual+instantaneous reward = more addictive. yes?

Same reason crack is much more addictive than snorted cocaine. Also true what you were saying about all the ritual involved and even just the rush of scoring. Even after talking to my dealer and confirming that things were all set, i'd feel a lot better. The locations where I'd score and do my first shot are also imprinted in my memory (under the bridge downtown, in the porta potty next to the cop spot, etc) and strongly associated with the heroin. It's a rush to cold cop off the street. The whole experience is addictive, the whole lifestyle.

The faster and stronger the reward, the stronger the reinforcement. Operant conditioning. People, places, and things associated with the reward tend to cause a craving for it. Classical conditoning. Behavioral psychology for junkies.

 

[Felonious Monk]

Yes and no. Scientifically, it's the same, they both attach to the same receptors. But, heroin is so euphoric, that IMO, it's more addictive.

 

[muie]

Yes, heroin is available in every country in the world while in Europe pills are extremely hard to come by and are mostly an American thing. Since morphine is the gold standard, heroin is perfect for the morphine addict in that its only slightly less sedating though still very much capable of very powerful nods, just as long lasting as morphine or even longer, slightly or arguably even more euphoric than morphine via same ROA (nasal, IV, IM), out of all the semi synthethic opioids like oxycodone or hydromorphone/codone it is the one most likely to be compared to morphine. Finally, H is also about the psychology/mentality that romanticises it.

As a user for about 1yr (smoking/chasing) and occassionally snorting (rare) starting with .1 (100mg) 24hrs 7days being sky high from morning to night only needing about 2-3 good hits/spots about 1/5 of .1 so about 20-25mg at a time. This (quickly) turned into what ended up on *just under* For a short while I was using poppy pods and using H to 'top off' but lost interest in pods soon enough. I was using .95g-.96g/day only to have 2-3 hits in the moring (I soon realized I needed that) and also to tell myself I wasn't doing 1g a day or 10 points a day, with each point costing me a lot of money having gotten it from the greediest pieces of shit whom used as well.

This is the dose that honestly was all I could handle as I had all the resources ($) at the time and while looking back now, I could have bought myself a house and maybe even a car as well I was using this money to find the perfect dose which increased from .1/day to .2/day, etc but I thought I had it for a while at 0.5g a day, I set a limit but sometimes (too many) wanted 'fun' and decided to get proper high so instead of 0.5g day which was delightful but certinatley could handle more and had an appetite like you wouldn't believe in other words if I had another 1/2g I would smoke it and be able to handle it/enjoy it too. So when treating myself, sometimes with 'friends' I would go through 1/2g (to myself) at their place and have *at least* another 1/2g usually 1g for home b/c home alone, isolated from everyone is where I felt the best place was to enjoy right?

I spoiled myself with money I could have used now so much and spoiled with heroin, I found through experience when spoiling myself that 1g/day was the most I needed sometimes nodding out with the tin foil and lighter in hand till next day (one of the safest feelings, that & knowing I had for next day). So 1g/day is what I found was just enough to use at the hight of my tolerence and still get fully blown from day to night 24/7 like before.

What I want to say about this drug is that I am starting to believe what everybody in science has been saying which is that 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) only has a half life of 2-3 min, more like 5-15min (smoking), after that its pure nod the first being the most energetic.

Pills are bad as well but if your in North America someone always has some Percs or something to get you through the day until your prescription, online pharmacies are harder, hardly anyone at least in Canada is (over)prescribed on mass like in America and hardly have for themselves in 90% of cases, same with benzos.

However at one time, 2002-2006 it was the other way around, pills were more addictive b/c heroin wasn't available since people including myself were buying oxycontin....but people cought on quick

 

[AgonyAndEcstasy781]

The pill problem in the US is a result of blatantly dangerous marketing of narcotics by pharmaceutical companies like Purdue, which blatantly marketed OxyContin as if it was a Pepsi product or a headache medication, giving all-expense trips to doctors for seminars in luxurious resorts where they touted its non-addictive nature and its wide applicability. It's sales agents pushed it on physicians they felt were likely to prescribe it, and distributed promotional items like the CD below.

There was a big push for pain management in the early 2000's and congress declared 2001-2010 the Decade of Pain Control and Research, ironically it would also become the decade of a renewed opiate crisis in many parts of the United States as a direct result of this push.

In Florida, pain clinics opened up that accepted walk-in patients from out of state, driven almost purely by greed on the part of "doctors" that saw the potential for quick cash and became legal drug pushers. Florida physicians at one point were responsible for writing the prescriptions for a full 80% of the oxycodone prescriptions across the United States.

Drug dealers saw the potential, and came to Florida with hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, given to people who coordinated a network of "pain patients" who eould visit multiple doctors and multiple pharmacies and the end result would be dealers returning home to Appalachia, New England, and virtually everywhere else with thousands of pills which were sold on the street like street drugs.

As regulatory agencies finally cracked down on overprescribing and Florida pain clinics, the price of pills increased until it was no longer viable to sustain a habit, and then areas like Appalachia and New England saw massive increases in heroin use, as indicated by overdose deaths and detox admittance information.

It's another result of the power of corporate greed to influence medicine and politics in the United States. The lobbying power of the pharmaceutical industry (among others) can not be underestimated here.

 

[Changa707]

^Thanks for the insight Agony...I really had no idea congress declared 2001-2010 the Decade of Pain Control and Research...thats pretty fucked up now that I think back. I mean I remember leaving the states in 2006 to europe for a couple years and then returning in 2008 and having a kind of reverse culture shock when I realized how many of my teenage friends were using pharmaceuticals at parties. I mean we had access to everything...Benzos, Soma, Adderall, Norcos, Oxy Ir, Percs, Bupe, Fent, Opana, not to mention lots of codeine...both the 50 mg and of course the famed Purple Drank (Boysenberry Flavor) from Costco.

Yeah so that was some crazy shit to see after coming from a place like Europe where pharmaceutical abuse was virtually unheard of, especially amongst the young adult crowd. And that's because of much stricter regulations over there to limit and tightly control the movement of highly addictive pharmaceuticals. But seeing that CD cover is just a mind-fuck man, heavy.

 

[fizzymk]

The pill problem in the US is a result of blatantly dangerous marketing of narcotics by pharmaceutical companies like Purdue, which blatantly marketed OxyContin as if it was a Pepsi product or a headache medication, giving all-expense trips to doctors for seminars in luxurious resorts where they touted its non-addictive nature and its wide applicability. It's sales agents pushed it on physicians they felt were likely to prescribe it, and distributed promotional items like the CD below.

There was a big push for pain management in the early 2000's and congress declared 2001-2010 the Decade of Pain Control and Research, ironically it would also become the decade of a renewed opiate crisis in many parts of the United States as a direct result of this push.

In Florida, pain clinics opened up that accepted walk-in patients from out of state, driven almost purely by greed on the part of "doctors" that saw the potential for quick cash and became legal drug pushers. Florida physicians at one point were responsible for writing the prescriptions for a full 80% of the oxycodone prescriptions across the United States.

Drug dealers saw the potential, and came to Florida with hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, given to people who coordinated a network of "pain patients" who eould visit multiple doctors and multiple pharmacies and the end result would be dealers returning home to Appalachia, New England, and virtually everywhere else with thousands of pills which were sold on the street like street drugs.

As regulatory agencies finally cracked down on overprescribing and Florida pain clinics, the price of pills increased until it was no longer viable to sustain a habit, and then areas like Appalachia and New England saw massive increases in heroin use, as indicated by overdose deaths and detox admittance information.

It's another result of the power of corporate greed to influence medicine and politics in the United States. The lobbying power of the pharmaceutical industry (among others) can not be underestimated here.

Absolutely right! I agree with everything you said here.

Only thing I dont understand, obviously all the big pharma companies recognize the demand for strong painkillers, they are cheap for them to produce on a large scale too, but they did nothing to fight the lawmakers when they begun cracking down on doctors writing scripts for certain drugs, seems logical to me, the big pharma companies would lobby to make it easier for more people to get ahold of these drugs, not just sit back and let lawmakers make it very tough for people to buy their products??

Plus, I would imagine the big pharma companies know what most of these pills go for on the street versus what it costs to buy them legally (with a script), so they know how much people are willing to pay to get the pills...I would have thought they would be fighting to make them available without a script, or at least very easy to get them.

 

[wezface]

Unfortunately, now doctors are so scared of regulatory agencies because of all this that they are wary to even treat legitimate pain. I have really hated to do the "doctor shopping" thing but I am young and have chronic pain and have had a hell of a time finding anyone that's willing to treat my pain. My last doc got scared and cut me off of 60mg hydrocodone/daily cold turkey for no good reason.

 

[Keif' Richards]

I've found both for myself and many others that favored opioids are largely a matter of preference. For instance, I always liked the feeling that hydrocodone gave. Of course it's hard to maintain a severe addiction to hydrocodone, as until recently in the US the only available hydrocodone was compounded with NSAIDS and the like.

That's where heroin really comes into play. It is grown and produced on a wholesale basis on the black market. It doesn't matter if it's coming from Burma, Mexico, or Afghanistan, it can be cheaper than prescription opioids by a factor of 10. Even if the heroin is of relatively low purity, the chances are more than likely that you will be saving money. Cheaper drugs as we all know does nothing to change the downward trajectory of an addict. Your tolerance just continues to grow until you are at the same point you were at while dependent on prescription opioids. At that point heroin is all you can afford.

In a way, heroin users are more prone to extreme dependence. I think the draw of heroin compared to prescription opioids is 90% price and 10% for its "superior" high.

 

[fizzymk]

Unfortunately, now doctors are so scared of regulatory agencies because of all this that they are wary to even treat legitimate pain. I have really hated to do the "doctor shopping" thing but I am young and have chronic pain and have had a hell of a time finding anyone that's willing to treat my pain. My last doc got scared and cut me off of 60mg hydrocodone/daily cold turkey for no good reason.

right on bro! I think the big pharmaceutical companies need to hire some better lobbyists! Or recruit some from the alcohol industry, as NO matter how many public health and safety problems alcohol causes, NO ONE will ever even suggest any new regulations or laws on it!