Opiates

Opiates and alcohol are both downers. They slow down activity in your nervous system. This has several risks. First, they both cause your breathing to slow down and become shallower. This can cause you to pass out faster than if you only take 1 drug.

Especially if you first drank alcohol and then take opiates, this increases the chance of passing out. If you first take opiates and then drink (some) alcohol, you are less likely to drink a lot. But of course it is better not to combine. This combination can cause serious physical risks.

• When using a drug for the first time, take only a small dose to see how your body reacts to the substance
• Only use drugs when you are feeling well
• Use drugs recreationally, not to combat psychological issues like fatigue
• Avoid using drugs if you have (had) psychological afflictions or if you have a family history of psychological diseases (such as depression) in your family
• Test your drugs before use at a drugs-testing service
• Make sure to prepare a good set and setting for drug use
• Only use drugs sparingly. Keep track of your use over time.
• Decide in advance how much you are planning to use over the evening, and stick to that. 
• Do not combine drugs with other substances or medicines
• Do not participate in traffic after drug use
• Prevent infectious diseases; Use your own snorter/sniffer and do not share paraphernalia with others
• After insufflating, rinse your nose well with lukewarm saline water (for example, by using a nasal spray or nasal douche)
• Are you, or one of your friends not feeling well? Keep an eye out for one another, take care of each other and visit the first aid (if one is available)
• Call 112 in a life-threatening situation
• Eat healthy before and after drug use. In particular, foods with lots of antioxidants and vitamins (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes, raisins, oranges, kiwi, broccoli). This is perhaps the most important tip! It can be difficult to eat during and after drug use, but make sure to try to eat something anyway. Eating well is a great way to reduce the hangover! If you can’t hold in solid foods, try juices, breakfast drinks, and smoothies.

• Do not use sedatives (downers) in combination with other sedatives (alcohol, GHB, sleeping pills, opiates) or ketamine. This is dangerous because you can fall unconscious and suffocate on your vomit.
• Write down the time of intake and your dose, text the dose and time to each other or put it in your phone to keep track of it yourself.
• If you feel that you are getting falling asleep, you can try to keep moving to avoid falling asleep. But beware; if moving takes a lot of effort, there is a chance that you may fall or trip, so be careful.
• An overdose is more likely on an empty stomach, a full stomach increases the chance of vomiting.
• Less is more; taking a small, extra dose later because you did not feel anything after your first dose is better than taking too much and having an overdose.
• Ensure that the people around you are aware of what you are going to use and have been using.

Some complaints after using drugs can last longer, A medical explanation or even treatment may then be necessary. The Brijder has set up a national consultancy for party drugs related medical complaints. If you have medical complaints after the use of party drugs, you can call the consultancy: 088 – 358 29 40. This service is only available in the Netherlands.

Heroin is highly addictive. Few people manage to control the use of the drug. The body quickly gets used to heroin. You then need more and more to still feel the desired effect of euphoria. It is striking that the withdrawal symptoms also occur very quickly; after only two or three weeks of use. A user feels sick, clammy and cold, perspires, has goosebumps, a runny nose, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps and muscle pain in arms and legs. These symptoms disappear when heroin is taken again. But the withdrawal symptoms only get worse every time. In addition, due to the euphoric and analgesic effect, a user continues to long for the drug. He/she puts everything aside and does everything (including stealing) just to be able to use. The mental dependence is especially great.

The history of opiates goes back a long way, about 4000 to 6000 years. Even then, people wrote about the poppy plant. Egyptians and many other peoples of the early Middle East used it. In the 7th century, opium arrived in China via Arab traders, where it was initially used to cure diarrhea. Later, under the influence of the Dutch settlers, opium became a remedy for malaria and it was used as a drug. China became obsessed with opium. The result was that many users became addicted and the then rulers announced a ban. This ban gave rise to two opium wars in which the English ensured that the opium from their colony of India could be sold in China. They wanted to keep selling this because they made a lot of money with it.

In Europe, opium was not introduced as a medicinal drink until 1525. The drink was called ‘laudanum’ and was made from alcohol and opium. It was used by both adults and children as a sleep and pain reliever. The drink was quite popular. There was almost no disease in which opium was not seen as some sort of panacea. During the 19th century, opium was freely available in drugstores in both the US and England.

The use of opium as a drug in Europe dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. It was used by all walks of life, but at that time it didn’t cause too many problems: it was cheap and not yet illegal. There was hardly any knowledge about the negative effects and the risks.

In 1803, a German pharmacist discovered how to make morphine from opium. Morphine, like opium, was used as a remedy for chronic pain and insomnia, but it was also taken by people who were addicted to laudanum (tincture of opium) and wanted to get rid of it. This didn’t work as morphine is even more potent and addictive than opium. Just how addictive morphine was was revealed when 45,000 soldiers returned addicted from the American Civil War.

Heroin was discovered in 1898 by a German company. It is made from morphine. The effect of this discovered new drug heroin turned out to be much stronger than that of morphine. For that reason, the drug was also called “heroin,” which means heroic or powerful in German. Where people used morphine to get rid of an opium addiction, they started using heroin to get rid of that morphine addiction. A vicious circle was the result. It was only too late to realize how addictive heroin was.

Heroin entered the drug market in 1972. The price was very low at first and before long all opium users switched to heroin and the same happened to the people who used other drugs. For years, the opiate problem has been the main drug problem in our country. This has now been reversed and there are relatively few heroin addicts.

In 1919 the Dutch Opium Act was passed. This determined that heroin was a hard drug from then on: possession, production, import, export and trade are punishable by law. Morphine, codeine and heroin may be used for medical purposes. People who own user amounts are not actively prosecuted. However, the heroin and the syringe attributes can be confiscated. Opiates such as morphine and codeine are mainly used in medicine. Morphine as a heavy painkiller and codeine as a cough suppressant. In that context, they are legal.
Check the theme Drugs and the law  for more info.

Combining different drugs can be risky and unpredictable. If you combine, you are more likely to have problems with your health. For more information, check the theme Drugs and combination use.

Heroin is regularly used in combination with other substances, for example with alcohol or cocaine. The combination with other downers is extra risky. For example, the respiratory inhibiting effect of opiates is enhanced by the use of alcohol. A combination with MAO inhibitors can lead to high blood pressure.

The combination with uppers such as cocaine gives your body different signals. Your body needs extra oxygen because of the cocaine, but gets it less because the heroin makes you breathe less.

How long a drug is detectable in your blood or urine depends on a number of factors. How often and how much you use and your personal metabolism (the speed at which the breakdown substances of a substance are broken down by your liver, in particular) influence how long it is detectable. Drugs are longer detectable in your urine than in your blood.

Heroin itself is usually detectable up to 8 hours after use. Tests usually look at the metabolite of heroin and these are detectable 3 to 5 days after use.

Opiates

Opiates are produced from the poppy plant. These plants grow in Central Asia and Southeast Asia (eg Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma and Thailand), but also in South America. Opium is obtained by making an incision in the seed bulb of the poppy plant. The seed bulb excretes a milky substance. When this dries up, a dark brown substance is formed, the raw opium. This raw substance can be smoked. Morphine can be made from the raw opium, and codeine can be made from morphine. Compared to morphine, codeine is a weak analgesic and a powerful anti-cough suppressant. By chemically processing the morphine, the heroin can eventually be created.

Opioids

Substances that have a similar effect in the brain as opiates, but do not occur in the original poppy bulb, are called opioids.