Heroin addiction treatment

Heroin Treatment in Oklahoma

Quite a bit of Heroin is available in Oklahoma State, primarily in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and the abuse of heroin poses a concern for law enforcement healthcare field. You will most commonly find Mexican black tar heroin being the most prevalent and abused type in Oklahoma. Mexican brown powdered heroin is available in a much smaller degree.
The abuse of Heroin continues to be a problem in Oklahoma even though, according to TEDs, the number of heroin-related treatment admissions to publicly funded facilities in 2001 (180) was considerably less than in 1997 (250).  The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services reports that 5.0 percent of substance abuse-related treatment admissions in FY2001 reported heroin/other opiates as their primary choice of drug.

In a study, NIDA researchers confirmed that the addictive effects of heroin can be obtained by smoking the substance, although smoking is a less efficient way of administration than injecting. The findings might help explain anecdotal reports of heroin smoking among users in some of the larger cities in the U.S.

In the study, scientists in NIDA's Division of Intramural Research (DIR) at the Addiction Research Center of the city of Baltimore gave heroin to human volunteers via a computer-controlled smoking device that delivered precise doses of the substance. The effects of four separate doses of smoked heroin were compared to those produced by four intravenous doses of heroin.

"The effects were similar but not equal on a gram-to-gram basis," says Dr. Edward Cone, who directed the study. By either route of administration, heroin was detected in the subjects' blood within 1 to 2 minutes of administration. For similar doses of the substance, however, smoking produced lower levels of heroin in the blood. The onset of heroin-induced miosis, the constriction of the pupils, took as long when the heroin was injected as when the drug was smoked. By either route, low and moderate doses of heroin produced miosis within 5 to 15 minutes; for high doses, smoking and injecting both caused miosis within 2 minutes. After similar periods, the subjects also reported that by either route they could "feel" the drug and perceive its pleasurable effects.

Dr. Cone says the findings suggest that individuals who smoke heroin may do so because the pharmacological effects are similar to those they obtain by injecting the heroin.