Heroin

This paper aims to fill some of the glaring gaps in the history of Mexico’s pre-cartel drug trade by viewing it as part of an international system connecting European and Latin suppliers with North American organized crime syndicates. It opens with a brief review of Mexico’s early development as a supplier of both narcotics and alcohol following the passage of prohibition laws in the United States. It examines the role of major U.S. organized figures, and their prominent “legitimate” business partners in businesses such as racing, gambling, and the cross-border narcotics trade. After World War II, U.S. crime organizations shifted their source of supply from Mexico to Europe, where more advanced chemists converted Turkish opium and morphine base into prized white heroin. However, almost from the start, French Corsican and Sicilian traffickers used Mexico as a transit country to evade U.S. Customs and narcotics agents at East Coast ports and the Canadian border. Mexico thus became deeply integrated into a global drug supply chain, at the same time “modernizing” leaders such as President Alemán were opening Mexico up to international trade and capital. Ultimately, as we will see, Miguel Félix Gallardo and the "Guadalajara cartel" inherited the priceless business and political connections of this international network, allowing them to enjoy a meteoric rise with protection from the Mexican state.

This parallel, randomized, open-ended clinical trial tested the impact of nicotine replacement pharmacotherapy during the course of methadone treatment among opiate abusers. A total of 424 men entered the study at 4 drug treatment centres in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. The intervention group received a 6-week regimen of nicotine replacement pharmacotherapy at no charge. After 6 months, 211 persons (99.5%) in the control group continued to smoke and 1 person (0.5%) had quit. In the intervention group, 117 (55.1%) persons smoked, 15 (7.1%) persons had quit and 80 (37.7%) had reduced by more than 50% the number of cigarettes they smoked at the start of the study (P < 0.0001). The findings suggest that the use of nicotine replacement pharmacology in tandem with methadone maintenance treatment can lead to dramatically improved efficacy for treatment of dual addictions.

Summary

The antidrug medication HEANTOS 4  is an Vietnamese herbal traditional medication, used for treatment of drug addiction. It was composed and prepared first by Mr. Tran Khuong Dan early 1990’s as a water extract in liquid form. Since 1995 the Institute of Chemistry, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology ( VAST ) has cooperated with Dan’s group for further scientific developments of HEANTOS. Since than, the products Heantos 1,2,3 and 4 have been developed in solid form as hard capsules through the improvment of extraction method, composition of ingredients etc. Heantos 4 is the latest product, which is standardized applying the modern technics like finger print HPLC/MS, IR,TLC… During almost 20 years of research on Heantos, the Institute of Chemistry has cooperated with several international institutions and persons in the clarification of toxicology, the chemistry and mechanism of action as well as in the clinical studies of Heantos.e.g. UNDP/UNOPS; Institute of Plant Biochemistry, Halle/S; Germany; University of Essen ( Germany ); University of British Columbia, Vancouver ( Canada ); Johns Hopkins University, USA….

In 1996 the UNDP/UNOPS supported this medication under a project named: “Further scientific development of the antidrug medication Heantos” ( VIE 96/033 ). Through the cooperation between the Institute of Chemistry and the Institute of plant bio chemistry about 200 compounds have been isolated and identified from this medication. None of them was assigned as toxic ( BMBF-projeet: BNBest.-BMBF-98, Germany ). A clinical study in phase II on Heatos 4 was in troduced in the Essen University, Germany in 2003-2005. Study on the mechanism of action of Heantos 4 is now carryingout in the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada, under the guide of Prof.Dr. Anthony Phillips and Prof.Dr. Michael Krausz.

In Vietnam the clinical study with phase I, II, III are carried out by the Central Psychiatric Hospital Nr. 1, Thuong Tin, Hanoi, Vietnam under supervision of the Ministery of Health has finalised in the year 2011with good results. In 2012 the Vietnamese Drug Administration issued the permission for production and utilisation of Heantos 4. Heantos 4 has been produced as hard capsules a 0,500 gram/capsul by Ha Thanh pharmaceutical company, Tuu Liet Road, Thanh Tri district, Hanoi in cooperation with the Heantos Joint Stock Company ( Heantos JSC. ). One dose of Heantos 4 ( for one detoxification treatment includes 70 capsules, used with in 5-7 days. The use of Heantos 4 in many drug addiction treatment centers in Vietnam showed, that Heantos 4 is effective, helps the patients to overcome all withdrawal symtoms mildly. No unwanted side effects have been observed, Heantos 4 is easely to be used. It can be used for treatment of drug addiction in the communes. Study on the revicidism in Hoa Binh treatment center, Vietnam showed, that 37 of 40 patients ( 92,5 % ) were drug free after 3 months of detoxification during the follow-up in the communes.

*Presentation on the PRCP 2014 in Vancouver, Canada.

Opioid overdoses are an important public health concern. Concerns about police involvement at overdose events may decrease calls to 911 for emergency medical care thereby increasing the chances than an overdose becomes fatal. To address this concern, Washington State passed a law that provides immunity from drug possession charges and facilitates the availability of take-home-naloxone (the opioid overdose antidote) to bystanders in 2010. To examine the knowledge and opinions regarding opioid overdoses and this new law, police (n=251) and paramedics (n=28) in Seattle, WA were surveyed. The majority of police (64 %) and paramedics (89 %) had been at an opioid overdose in the prior year. Few officers (16 %) or paramedics (7 %) were aware of the new law. While arrests at overdose scenes were rare, drugs or paraphernalia were confiscated at 25 % of the most recent overdoses police responded to. Three quarters of officers felt it was important they were at the scene of an overdose to protect medical personnel, and a minority, 34 %, indicated it was important they were present for the purpose of enforcing laws. Police opinions about the immunity and naloxone provisions of the law were split, and we present a summary of the reasons for their opinions. The results of this survey were utilized in public health efforts by the police department which developed a roll call training video shown to all patrol officers. Knowledge of the law was low, and opinions of it were mixed; however, police were concerned about the issue of opioid overdose and willing to implement agency-wide training.

Background: Drug abuse is hazardous and known to be prevalent among young adults, warranting efforts to increase awareness about harmful effects and to change attitudes. This study was conducted to assess the perceptions of a group of medical students from Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim country, regarding four drugs namely heroin, charas, benzodiazepines and alcohol.

Recent evidence has shown that a single maintenance dose of heroin attenuates psychophysiological stress responses in heroin-dependent patients, probably reflecting the effectiveness of heroin-assisted therapies for the treatment of severe heroin addiction. However, the underlying neural circuitry of these effects has not yet been investigated. Using a cross-over, double-blind, vehicle-controlled design, 22 heroin-dependent and heroin-maintained outpatients from the Centre of Substance Use Disorders at the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Basel were studied after heroin and placebo administration, while 17 healthy controls from the general population were included for placebo administration only. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to detect brain responses to fearful faces and dynamic causal modelling was applied to compute fear-induced modulation of connectivity within the emotional face network. Stress responses were assessed by hormone releases and subjective rati...

Heroin use carries a large burden of morbidity and mortality. Heroin overdose and in particular events that need intensive care unit (ICU) admission have not been widely examined. The aim of this study was to describe the causes of ICU admission and the outcome of patients with a heroin overdose. A retrospective chart review of all patients with a heroin overdose admitted to the ICU between 1987 and 2006 was conducted. Forty-two records were available for review. The average age of the patients was 28 years. In the field, 19 persons were found in coma Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS &lt; 8) and respiratory depression and were treated with naloxone. The reasons for ICU admission included hypoxemia in 37 (88 percent), 28 of whom had acute lung injury (ALI) and nine aspiration pneumonia, shock in three (7.2 percent) and persistent mental compromise in two patients (4.8 percent). Intubation and mechanical ventilation (MV) were instituted in 37 patients. In 19 of the 37 patients, weaning and ext...

Background: Kratom, a Southeast Asian plant with opioid-receptor mediated effects, has emerged as a potential substance of abuse, with limited data on its use and effects. This study characterized kratom user demographics, use patterns, and perceived drug effects. Methods: A cross-sectional, anonymous online survey was conducted between January and December 2017. Results: 2,798 kratom users-mean age 40 (SD = 12); predominantly White (90 %), female (61 %), and located in the US (97 %)-completed the survey. Kratom was primarily taken orally in doses of 1−3 g (49 %), with daily use (59 %) being most common. Kratom was used for pain (91 %), anxiety (67 %), and depression (65 %), with high ratings of effectiveness. 1,144 (41 %) used kratom to stop or reduce prescription or illicit opioid use, citing decreased opioid withdrawal and craving related to kratom use, with 411 reporting > 1-year continuous abstinence from opioids attributed to kratom use. Roughly one-third of respondents reported adverse effects of kratom, largely rated as mild in severity and lasting ≤24 h. Seventeen participants (0.6 %) sought treatment for adverse effects. Fifty-six individuals (2 %) met DSM-5 criteria for a past-year moderate or severe kratom-related substance use disorder (SUD). When asked how troubled they felt regarding their kratom use, the mean (SD) rating was 3.2 (9.8) on a scale from 0 to 100. Conclusion: Kratom is used among White, middle-aged Americans for symptoms of pain, anxiety, depression, and opioid withdrawal. Although regular use was typical, kratom-related SUD and serious adverse effects were uncommon. Additional research on kratom epidemiology and pharmacology is imperative in light of the present opioid epidemic.

Objectives: To study the association of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with heroin addiction. Study design: A cross-sectional, hospital based study. Place and duration of study: The study was carried out at Lady Reading Hospital and Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan from 4th April 2012 to 13th September 2012. Subjects and Methods: A sample of 137 adult heroin addicts were analyzed that whether they were ADHD and that childhood problem continues to manifest symptoms in adults. For retrospective assessment of childhood ADHD, the Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS) as well as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) symptom checklist for ADHD was used. The Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS) was used to assess the persisting symptoms of ADHD in adults. Inclusion criteria: Patient diagnosed with heroin addiction according to ICD-9 and DSM-IV. Exclusion criteria: Patient has co-morbid with any other mental illnesses. Results: The di...

Heroin, Organized Crime and the Making of Modern Turkey is a book on organized crime in Turkey with a historical approach that covers the period starting from the Ottoman Empire ending in the 1970s with a short elaboration of the contemporary era in the conclusion section. The author of the book, Ryan Gingeras, is an academic at the Naval Postgraduate School in the U.S.A.

This extract from The Drug Users Bible (ISBN: 9780995593688) introduces a basic common sense safety regime (aka "The Ten Commandments Of Safer Drug Use"). It has been made freely available in the hope that it reaches more of the users who might otherwise remain ignorant of this primary but essential risk mitigation information.

Stress and drug-associated cues can trigger craving and relapse in abstinent drug-dependent individuals. Although the role of these two critical factors in relapse has been extensively studied, the interaction between stress and drug-associated cues in relapse has been less well characterized. Using an animal model of relapse, we assessed the effects of the pharmacological stressor, yohimbine (1.25 or 2.5 mg/kg), on reinstatement of extinguished heroin-seeking in rats either in the presence or absence of heroin-associated cues. Yohimbine, in the absence of heroin-associated cues, and cues by themselves reliably reinstated heroin-seeking over extinction levels. Notably, animals showed significantly potentiated responding when yohimbine preceded cue-induced reinstatement (3-4× higher over cues or yohimbine alone). These results demonstrate that exposure to heroin-paired cues during yohimbine-induced stress greatly potentiates heroin-seeking, and support the simultaneous targeting of both stress and cue activation during relapse intervention.

Biomedical understanding of methadone as a magic-bullet pharmacological block to the euphoric effects of heroin is inconsistent with epidemiological and clinical data. An ethnographic perspective on the ways street-based heroin addicts experience methadone reveals the quagmire of power relations that shape drug treatment in the United States. The phenomenon of the methadone clinic is an unhappy compromise between competing discourses: A criminalizing morality versus a medicalizing model of addiction-as-a-brain-disease. Treatment in this context becomes a hostile exercise in disciplining the unruly misuses of pleasure and in controlling economically unproductive bodies. Most of the biomedical and epidemiological research literature on methadone obscures these power dynamics by technocratically debating dosage titrations in a social vacuum. A fou-caultian critique of the interplay between power and knowledge might dismiss debates over the Swiss experiments with heroin prescription as merely one more version of biopower disciplining unworthy bodies. Foucault's ill-defined concept of the specific intellectual as someone who confronts power relations on a practical technical level, however, suggests there can be a role for political as well as theoretical engagement with debates in the field of applied substance abuse treatment. Meanwhile, too many heroin addicts who are prescribed methadone in the United States suffer negative side effects that range from an accentuated craving for polydrug abuse to a paralyzing sense of impotence and physical and emotional discomfort. In a halting voice, over the long-distance telephone lines between New York and California, Primo, the manager of the crack house I had lived next to for almost four years in East Harlem admitted that he was taking 80 milligrams of methadone every day. Profoundly embarrassed, Primo asked me not to mention his new methadone addiction in the epilogue to the book that I was preparing at the time of that telephone call (Bourgois 1995). 1 The news that Primo was physically addicted to methadone was counterintuitive to me: By conventional standards, Primo had turned his life around in the year prior to that telephone conversation. He had stopped selling crack; he had found legal employment as a summer replacement porter for the mafia-controlled union 2 that represents service workers in primarily luxury apartment buildings; and he had stopped drinking alcohol and sniffing cocaine. In contrast, during the almost six years I had known

Основната тема на овој труд е феноменот на наркоманијата како еден вид од мноштвото девијантни однесувања.  Поимот на наркоманијата е тесно поврзан со поимот на дрогата и наркотиците воопшто. Според дефиницијата за наркоманија, дадена од Светската здравствена организација, произлегува дека појавата на наркоманија произлегува од употребата на дрога и наркотици. 
Самиот термин дрога може да се разбере во поширока смисла, подразбирајќи супстанци од нелегална, но и од легална употреба, во рамките на фармацевтските индустрии. Потеклото на самиот збор “дрога” сеуште не е со сигурност утврдено, но се смета дека потекнува од арапскиот јазик, каде, како кованица од два збора означува лековито средство.

Recent clinical observations and psychiatric diagnostic findings of drug-dependent individuals suggest that they are predisposed to addiction because they suffer with painful affect states and related psychiatric disorders. The drugs that addicts select are not chosen randomly. Their drug of choice is the result of an interaction between the psychopharmacologic action of the drug and the dominant painful feelings with which they struggle. Narcotic addicts prefer opiates because of their powerful muting action on the disorganizing and threatening affects of rage and aggression. Cocaine has its appeal because of its ability to relieve distress associated with depression, hypomania, and hyperactivity.

En la RIOD no somos ajenas a los debates políticos y normativos que, en los diferentes niveles, se desarrollan, pero sobre todo no somos ajenas a las demandas y necesidades de las personas y las comunidades para y con las que trabajamos; entre quienes nos genera especial inquietud aquellas personas que, por su especial situación de vulnerabilidad, no se acercan a la red, ni a los dispositivos que se establecen para dar respuesta a las situaciones de consumo de drogas. En este sentido, y cumpliendo con nuestra misión de incidir en las políticas públicas y los problemas relacionados con el consumo de drogas y adicciones, desde un enfoque de Derechos Humanos, nos estamos centrando, durante el año 2018, en el desarrollo de una estrategia para el fortalecimiento e impulso de políticas y programas de reducción de daños asociados al consumo de drogas en Iberoamérica. La estrategia se ha desarrollado a través de varias acciones, y una de ellas es la que presentaremos en este acto: la recopilación de experiencias orientadas a buenas prácticas en una guía que, además, nace con vocación de ser una herramienta que ayude a la incorporación del enfoque de reducción de daños, y el monitoreo de la calidad de la atención y evaluación del desempeño en las políticas y recursos dirigidos a personas usuarias de drogas en situaciones de alta vulnerabilidad socio-sanitaria. Esta iniciativa ha sido financiada a través de la convocatoria de 2017 para la realización de actividades de interés general, con cargo a la asignación tributaria del Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas, del Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad.

When a family member cares, the temptation to nag is understandable, and may even seem justifiable. However, there is one unavoidable and indisputable truth about nagging and addiction: It is extremely ineffective. In many cases, nagging may even have the opposite effect than what is desired. Nagging can make things worse instead of better.

Introduction: The companion book to this one, Taking the Escalator: Express (2016) goes into great detail about many of the changes faced by substance abuse and mental health counselors in modern times when compared with the past. This book, The Tools of Engagement, provides counselors with the strategies, skills and of course tools to effectively engage and then help some of the more challenging clients we see in treatment in today's world. To get started and to put this into a simple perspective, review and consider the illustration below: The Puzzle, which compares counseling in the past " Then " with some of the new challenges we face " Now "

Opioids are important, if not essential, agents in treating certain types of chronic pain. However, the prevalence of drug misuse, abuse, and addiction has fostered considerable consternation among physicians, who may hesitate to prescribe these medications both due to concern for patients (misuse, abuse, and addiction), and fears of prosecution and/or professional sanction. Such practice may reflect 1) inadequate knowledge about patients&#39; susceptibility to, or current drug misuse or abuse; 2) lack of familiarity with extant assessments and/or regulations, and/or 3) an unanticipated reaction to existing guidelines, policies or laws. We posit that assessing patients&#39; predisposition to, and patterns of, drug misuse/abuse is a vital first step toward establishing and maintaining the safe and effective use of opioid analgesics in the treatment of chronic pain. Adherence monitoring is critical to identify patients&#39; prior and current drug use, establish treatment basis, and ev...

Paper prepared by Det. Edward Burns (ret.), Baltimore Police Department, for the National Institute of Justice project on Strategies to Combat Narcotics Wholesalers; grant to the Police Executive Research Forum. Clifford L. Karchmer, Project Director .  Note that Burns later became the researcher for David Simon (Homicide:  Life on the Street) and this paper captures the profiles of several Baltimore drug traffickers later fictionalized in the award winning TV program, The Wire. 

This bulletin examines the phenomenon of violent inner-city gangs and introduces an investigative approach to combating these gangs in Baltimore, Maryland. Gangs have a devastating effect: they instill fear among citizens and create an atmosphere of violence so pervasive that the nation's youth now view serious, often fatal assaults as normal responses to perceived or actual slights.

It may seem easy for a substance abuse counselor to tell the family of someone who is addicted to just kick them out "tough love" style. In today's world, however, with rampant IV heroin use,  and other risk factors, does it work that simply or should we consider other factors?

Conducting toxicology on post-mortem specimens provides a number of very significant challenges to the scientist. The range of additional specimens include tissues such as decomposing blood and other tissues, hair, muscle, fat, lung, and even larvae feeding on the host require special techniques to isolate a foreign substance and allow detection without interference from the matrix. A number of drugs

This paper aims to fill some of the glaring gaps in the history of Mexico’s pre-cartel drug trade by viewing it as part of an international system connecting European and Latin suppliers with North American organized crime syndicates. It opens with a brief review of Mexico’s early development as a supplier of both narcotics and alcohol following the passage of prohibition laws in the United States. It examines the role of major U.S. organized figures, and their prominent “legitimate” business partners in businesses such as racing, gambling, and the cross-border narcotics trade. After World War II, U.S. crime organizations shifted their source of supply from Mexico to Europe, where more advanced chemists converted Turkish opium and morphine base into prized white heroin. However, almost from the start, French Corsican and Sicilian traffickers used Mexico as a transit country to evade U.S. Customs and narcotics agents at East Coast ports and the Canadian border. Mexico thus became deeply integrated into a global drug supply chain, at the same time “modernizing” leaders such as President Alemán were opening Mexico up to international trade and capital. Ultimately, Miguel Angel Félix Gallardo and the "Guadalajara cartel" inherited the priceless business and political connections of this international network, allowing them to enjoy a meteoric rise with protection from the Mexican state.

A sensitive and specific liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS) method for the simultaneous quantification of opioids, cocaine, and metabolites in urine was developed and validated. A 10-mL aliquot of urine was injected directly onto the LC/MS/MS system. The lack of sample preparation substantially reduced total analysis time. Separation was performed by reversed-phase chromatography with gradient elution for all analytes in 26 min. Atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) was a rugged and efficient ionization technique for basic drugs. Identification and quantification was based on selected reaction monitoring (SRM). Calibration, with deuterated internal standards, was performed by linear regression analysis (weighting factor 1/x). Limits of quantitation (LOQ) were established between 10-100 ng/mL and linearity was obtained up to a maximum of 10 000 ng/mL with an average correlation coefficient (R 2 ) > 0.99. Analytical validation criteria for specificity, precision, accuracy, dilution integrity, matrix effect, and stability were fulfilled. The method proved to be simple and time efficient, and was applicable for illicit drug use monitoring and methadone treatment compliance in clinical research projects

Gli idronimi del Peloponneso antico sono spesso in rapporto con personaggi femminili, come ninfe, dee ed eroine, locali e pan-elleniche. Si tratta per lo più di personificazioni delle località, come l’etimologia dei loro nomi e la loro tradizione dimostrano, e sono il riflesso di un immaginario arcaico, che collegava l’idea di femminilità all’acqua, alla natura, alla vita e alla morte. Taluni di questi personaggi hanno poi continuato a vivere, evolvendosi o trasformandosi, come archetipi artistico-letterari e religioso-morali, non solo nelle società greca e latina, ma perfino, direttamente o indirettamente, in quelle cristiane post-classiche, medievali e moderne, come nel caso delle ninfe, delle Danaidi o di Elena.

Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, Western European societies experienced a deep crisis, involving economic turmoil and youth protest, that became most perceptible in an alleged crisis of the city. This dissertation argues that as a reaction to this crisis a spatialization of the social took place that established urban space as a prime object of governmental policies. It argues further that the transformation of social problems into questions of spatial order was mirrored in a growing reference by non-conforming youth to space as a site of liberation. Both developments supported and influenced each other and were based on the conception of certain socio-geographical spaces as counter-sites that differed entirely from all other spaces.
Spaces of non-conforming youth are therefore at the heart of this dissertation. Meeting places of the heroin scene and squatted houses in Zurich and various West German cities, most notably West Berlin, serve as examples of such spaces and their significance for European societies in the early 1980s.
This study employs a double perspective. It traces the spaces of youth deviance as an object of governmental technologies and seeks to deconstruct the underlying assumptions about normalcy, deviance, youth, and urban space. At the same time, it explores the practices and imaginations of those youth who were seeking to evade or rebel against the hegemonic order through squatting of, and sojourning at, specific urban spaces. To grasp the perspective of both governmental institutions and non-conforming youth, a combined analysis of their discursive and spatial practices is employed. Making use of Foucault's concept of heterotopia, or “other spaces”, the possibilities and limitations in regulating and creating social change through urban spaces of deviance and rebellion comes into focus. This dissertation therefore contributes to a social and cultural historiography of the 1980s as well as furthers our understanding of the mutually constructed nature of space, youth, normalcy, and deviance.

Current pharmacotherapies for treating morphine/heroin dependence are designed to substitute or block addiction by targeting the drug itself rather than the brain. The heroin addict is still being exposed to addictive opiates, and consequently may develop tolerance to and experience withdrawal and drug&#39;s toxic effects from the treatment with high incidence of relapse to addictive drug consumption. As for other drugs of abuse, an alternative approach for morphine/heroin addiction is an antibody-based antagonism of heroin&#39;s brain entry. This review summarizes the literature examining important aspects of neurobiological and pharmacological processes involved in opiate dependence. Thereafter, classical pharmacological interventions for opiate dependence treatment and its major clinical limitations are reviewed. Finally, relevant preclinical studies are examined for comparisons in the design, use, immunogenic profile and efficacy of several models of morphine/heroin vaccine as i...

The Ticket That Exploded can be described as both the second and the last of the Nova Trilogy, due to William Burroughs' fixation on the rewrite. Each tomb of the cut-up trilogy contains not only the dissected work of multiple writers but also the work of the other - with passages and ideas rehashed incestuously between the three without apology, working harmoniously  alongside Burroughs' theories concerning authorship, originality and control. This review aims to address Burroughsian conceptions of control in relation to his place as 'the addict' in contemporary critical theory.

A kötetben kvalitatív módszerekkel - elsősorban féligstrukturált  interjúkkal - nyert adatok kerülnek bemutatásra. Az elemzés narratív szempontokat követett, így az ágencia, a "drogalitás", a felépülési narratívák, valamint a kockázati elbeszélések alapján.

Background: Euphoria has been described in heroin-dependent individuals after heroin administration. However, affective disturbances and disorders are common in heroin dependence. The present study examined the acute effects of heroin on emotions in heroindependent patients. Methods: This randomized controlled crossover trial included 28 heroin-dependent patients (67.9% male, n ¼ 19) in stable heroinassisted treatment and 20 healthy controls. The patients were administered heroin or saline (placebo), the controls were administered saline. Data measuring mood, affects and heroin craving (BDI, AMRS, STAI, STAXI, and HCQ) were assessed before and 60 minutes after substance injection. Results: Before substance injection, heroin-dependent patients showed significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than healthy controls (p < .0001). Heroin administration-but not placebo administration-was associated with a significant decrease in all negative emotions, including craving, and a significant increase in emotional well-being (p < .0001), irrespective of perceived intoxication and sedation. After the experiment, the patients did not differ from healthy controls in their emotions, once they had received heroin. Conclusions: Heroin dampens craving, negative emotions, and increases positive emotions. These findings indicate that heroin regulates emotions and underscore the clinical benefit of opioid substitution treatment for heroin-dependent patients. (Am J Addict 2013;XX:1-7)

The drug addicted characters in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting novels and Danny Boyle's film adaptations desperately seek to escape their Edinburgh environment through their use of heroin. Some may view their drug-taking as a display of inherent deviance or an attempt at self-destruction; instead, I view their consumption of opioids as a method for self-preservation in response to their societal alienation. In my thesis, I argue that this alienation stems from the predicaments plaguing Scotland’s population during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher’s administration prioritized the material desires of neoliberalism over the frequently suppressed principles of the welfare state. In this way, Thatcherism further oppressed Trainspotting’s underclass by pushing policies that often inspired adverse emotions in those who could not adapt, which I propose encouraged subsequent substance abuse as a method of self-preservation. Specifically, these policies contributed to deindustrialization, mass unemployment, uninhabitable housing conditions and an overall sense of deprivation and disenfranchisement among the Trainspotters. Largely devoid of the immediate option to improve their circumstances due to a lack of economic means and limitations related to their social statuses, the Trainspotters instead search for a superficial way out of these constricting circumstances. Already alienated from society, the characters in Welsh’s novels and Boyle’s films see in heroin an opportunity to reinforce their withdrawal as they live like ghosts in a state of ‘junkie limbo,’ a space that exists between full participation in Thatcherite society and total disengagement via death. Initially meant as a temporary anesthetic, opioids become a lifelong companion of the Trainspotters due to the painful nature of physical withdrawal and poor drug policies. Methadone, for instance, sustains the Trainspotters’ drug dependency while increasing the prevalence of an overdose, and continues to claim the lives of Scottish addicts left over from the ‘Trainspotting Generation.’ Utilizing the complete Trainspotting series as a key case study, with an added focus on the most recent text, Dead Men’s Trousers, and film, T2 Trainspotting, my thesis will contribute to the prior research done on the ‘Trainspotting Generation.’

Heroin and other opiate dependencies affect individual users, interpersonal relationships, and communities.The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand risk factors of heroin dependence by examining the life course paths of individuals who have been through addiction, treatment, and are currently in recovery. In-depth interviews were conducted with five participants in recovery. Participant narratives suggest that early childhood experiences, specifically parental abuse and social rejection, combined with substance abuse as a model for coping, influenced the development of addiction. Social support and self-awareness during and after treatment were effective components of sustaining recovery.