Word: addicted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ralphie got to Odyssey House from a hospital, where he had been seriously ill with hepatitis, contracted from a dirty needle he used to mainline heroin by injecting it into a vein in his arm. He is probably the youngest addict to surface for treatment in a terrifying wave of heroin use among youth, which has caught up teen-agers and even preadolescent children from city ghettos to fashionable suburbs, from New York ?where the problem is still most severe ?to the West Coast. One 17-year-old at Odyssey House knew Walter Vandermeer, 12, who died...
...heroin epidemic has hit us. We must face that fact," says Dr. Donald Louria, president of the New York State Council on Drug Addiction and author of Drug Scene. Dr. Elliot Luby, associate director of Detroit's addict-treating Lafayette Clinic, concurs: "Addiction is really reaching epidemic proportions. You have to look at it as an infectious disease." Epidemic, of course, is a relative term, but as a Chicago psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin Schwarz, says: "Now we're seeing it clinically, whereas before we weren't. The kids on heroin all have long histories of drug use." At the California-based...
First there is a "rush," a euphoric spasm of 60 seconds or so, which many addicts compare to sexual climax. Then comes a "high," which may last for several hours, a lethargic, withdrawn state in which the addict nods drowsily, without appetite for food, companionship, sex?or life. Heroin, says one addict bitterly, "has all the advantages of death, without its permanence." After the high ends, there is the frantic scramble for a new supply in order to shoot up once again, to escape one more time into compulsive oblivion. As the junkie develops tolerance for the drug, he must...
...user. The original kilo has now grossed $225,000 for suppliers, traffickers, pushers and peddlers. The first user often splits the nickel bag into even smaller quantities that he resells for $2 or $3, making a profit that he himself can use to help support his habit. Because the addict often does not know just how strong the stuff he has bought really is, he can easily give himself an overdose that makes him unconscious or even kills...
...normally under its influence. Loss of appetite and constipation will continue; he may look pale and undernourished. Look for signs of injections: black and blue tattoolike marks, small scabs or long scars along veins, especially on forearms, backs of hands and insteps, small drops of blood on clothing. An addict may keep his sleeves rolled down to hide marks...