The Route to Oblivion—
Opium>Morphine>Heroin

Drug oblivion, collapsed drug addict

Processing plants deep in the jungles of South East Asia, Pakistan, Mexico and Colombia transform the liquid extracted from poppy seeds into morphine and from there the manufacturers either process it themselves or ship it out for conversion into heroin.

The Bayer Company located in Germany first began using heroin as a remedy for coughs and as a painkiller back in 1898. Some in the medical profession at the time thought it would also help to cure addiction to opium and morphine.

When sedation is needed during surgery to repair injuries to the body, limb amputation, and operations, anesthetics do the job. So what can a person do to alleviate the mental pain that ensues from insurmountable problems in life? Why would a person seek relief from such pain by using opium, morphine or heroin? Let’s take a closer look at heroin.

In 1898, it was thought that heroin would help decrease morphine and opium addiction. However, some 12 years later doctors realised people were becoming strongly addicted to heroin as well. In 1914, the United States tried to control its use and passed the Harrison Act. This was the first of many attempts to control its use and reduce the number of addicts in the country.

The word heroin comes from the German word heroics which means powerful and heroic. In terms of employment, it’s a winner. As of 2017, opium production provided about 400,000 jobs in Afghanistan—more than the employment available in the Afghan National Security Forces.

Like cocaine, heroin can be mixed with less expensive components to thin it out and make more money, by weight, for the dealers and pushers. Whilst the medical use of heroin has its value, illegal use of heroin creates misery, stultification, apathy and often death. Withdrawals from using heroin are the nearest an addict can get to experiencing hell and damnation. You are damned if you use it and damned if you don’t. Injected, smoked or ingested the result is the same, the coffin is not far away. When needle hygiene, safe sex and the use of condoms go out the window, the consequences can be dreadful. HIV and hepatitis are bad enough but what is far worse are the withdrawal symptoms newborn babies suffer when the mother is a heroin addict.

Withdrawal is painful and without the means to counteract the pain and other withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, sweating, vomiting, and diarrhea, then the nightmare begins. Being thrown into a padded cell to ‘work it off’ was the solution in some rehab units in the distant past but it was no answer at all. The padded cell didn’t handle the addiction or the need to go and score more heroin immediately after being released from rehab.

However, there is one method of withdrawal and recovery from heroin addiction that does work. It is a programme with a specific non-drug means of handling the pain of withdrawal—both physical and mental. That programme is the Narconon Programme. You can find out about it by contacting Narconon UK for an appointment to visit and see what can be done.



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AUTHOR

Jemima J. Jones

A writer that tells it like it is. She has been there done that and got the T-shirt.

NARCONON UNITED KINGDOM

DRUG EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION