Talk:Heroin

Distinguished from black tar????

In the intro presently is" Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt which is distinguished from black tar heroin,..." There are a lot of different street heroins available around the world and most are not "black tar"; they are powdered preparations.Generally white or brown powders. "Black tar heroin" is much too specific a description.

Thisarticle :Int J Drug Policy. 2009 May; 20(3): 277–282. Published online 2008 Oct 21. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2008.08.003 PMCID: PMC2704563 NIHMSID: NIHMS94349 PMID: 18945606 Heroin in brown, black and white: Structural factors and medical consequences in the US heroin market Daniel Ciccarone*

might be an interesting place to start researching different forms.Cuvtixo (talk) 21:57, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

I am a student .

I am currently writing a student-writing: "Fried Hiroïn" (heated, half-chewed),

- effects, side effects, indication? (I'm usually a German speaker. Unfortunately , the topic in German is very suppressed . Contrary to English. With many thanks in advance.) Interessierter Benutzer (talk) 12:47, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2023

In the pharmacology section currently reading as “Once in the brain, it then is deacetylated variously into the inactive 3-monoacetylmorphine and the active 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), and then to morphine, which bind to μ-opioid receptors, resulting in the drug's euphoric, analgesic (pain relief), and anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) effects; heroin itself exhibits relatively low affinity for the μ receptor.[78]”

An addition on how 6-MAM is likely a more potent μ-opioid receptor agonist than morphine could be useful to explain why heroine is more potent than morphine

Dana E. Selley, Cheng-Chun Cao, Tammy Sexton, Jennifer A. Schwegel, Thomas J. Martin, Steven R. Childers, 2001, Biochemical Pharmacology, 62, 4, 447-455

From abstract: These results indicate that the heroin metabolite 6-MAM possesses higher efficacy than other heroin metabolites at μ-opioid receptors, which may contribute to the higher efficacy of heroin compared with morphine in certain behavioral paradigms in vivo. 129.12.157.174 (talk) 13:55, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Actualcpscm (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Harm Reduction

A great amount of article space was devoted to discuss the general idea of Harm reduction. This article is not a place for this and it ought not be included except for what can be connected to heroin. I have boldly removed that section entirely as being only tangentially related. Graywalls (talk) 09:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Heroin is also used in medical treatments, not only as a recreational drug. The description of the page should mention such. Instead of only saying it’s used for recreational use

Such as, "Pain medication and more commonly used as a recreational drug"

No other common opioids that are abused recreationally have this description on wikipefia Utaninja (talk) 13:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

There is a Medical Uses section, and non-recreational purposes are mentioned throughout, and the lead says more commonly as a recreational drug. I think that's almost certainly true, but if you can find a source saying it's more commonly used in a medical setting than recreationally, I'm sure that'd be welcomed. For a similarly structured article, i.e. a drug that is more commonly used recreationally than medically but does get some niche medical use, see methamphetamine. I think with other opioids, even heavily abused ones, they are more used medicinally than recreationally; also most other abused opioids are manufactured pharmaceutical drugs, and so at some stage require an intent for medical use (i.e. a prescription) to make their way onto the (black) market, whereas heroin sidesteps the pharmaceutical manufacturing step.

Kimen8 (talk) 13:28, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

That makes sense. Heroin is certainly used more recreationally than medically. Thanks for the explanation! This makes perfect sense. Utaninja (talk) 17:42, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Opium is grown in

At present, opium poppies are mostly grown in Afghanistan (224,000 hectares (550,000 acres)), and in Southeast Asia, especially in the region known as the Golden Triangle straddling Burma (57,600 hectares (142,000 acres)), Thailand,

Afghanistan might be a little outdated by now since it's been about 3 years after the taliban outlawed it, but they were still growing itnshoetly after the ban. The main poppy source globally is now: Australia, Turkey, and the EU (Spain and one or two other countries, France and Hungary I think). Australia (Tasmania/J&J) grows >50% of the world's supply. I'm aware that poppy growing and thebaine and opravine is different to what this article is about. W;ChangingUsername (talk) 04:57, 18 May 2024 (UTC)