Medical marijuana laws generate significant policy debates regarding drug policy. In particular, if marijuana is a complement or a gateway drug to hard drugs, these laws would increase not only the usage of marijuana but hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin. In this paper, I empirically study the relationships between marijuana and cocaine or heroin by analyzing data on drug possession arrests...

BACKGROUND We previously found a five cluster of psychological symptoms in heroin use disorder (HUD) patients: 'worthlessness-being trapped', 'somatic-symptoms', 'sensitivity-psychoticism', 'panic-anxiety', and 'violence-suicide'. We demonstrated that this aggregation is independent of the chosen treatment, of intoxication status and of the presence of psychiatric problems. METHODS 2314 Subje...

OBJECTIVES Previous studies demonstrated a functional similarity between vertebrate and honey bee nervous systems. The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of heroin and Iranian street Kerack, a combination of heroin and caffeine, on sensory threshold and locomotor activity in honey bees. MATERIALS AND METHODS All drugs were given orally to honey bees 30 min before each experim...

OBJECTIVES To describe the circumstances surrounding recent heroin overdose among a sample of heroin overdose survivors and the links to their knowledge of overdose risk. METHODS A cross-sectional survey of 257 recent non-fatal heroin overdose survivors was undertaken to examine self-reported knowledge of overdose risk reduction strategies, behaviour in the 12 h prior to overdose and attribut...

A study comprising of detail history collection of first - day heroin chasing of 80 heroin addicts in respect to the contribution of their peers was done. Analysis reveals that the peer group influence was significantly operative in several ways in the initiation of heroin abuse.

Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) has rarely been described in patients with heroin intoxication. Here, we report a rare case of MODS involving six organs, due to heroin intoxication. The patient was a 32-yearold Chinese man with severe heroin intoxication complicated by acute pulmonary edema and respiratory insufficiency, shock, myocardial damage and cardiac insufficiency, rhabdomyoly...

Both pre-clinical and clinical studies make feasible the use of vaccines as novel therapeutic medications to treat drug addiction. No reports to date have shown the development of structural models of opiate candidate vaccines for treating human addiction to such compounds. Here we report on the initial development of a novel structural formulation of a bi-valent vaccine against morphine/heroin...

In this paper, a model for the use of heroin with treat-age is formulated based on the principles of mathematical epidemiology. The model accounts for relapse rate that depends on how long the host has been in treatment for heroin addiction. An explicit formula for the reproductive number of the heroin spread is obtained. By using the method of Lyapunov functional, we established the dynamical ...

BACKGROUND The commencement of methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) in 2005 represents a quantum leap in the management of heroin dependence in Malaysia. OBJECTIVE To examine the 2-year outcomes of this modality in the treatment of heroin dependence with respect to the quality of life (QOL), heroin abstinence, and rate of employment among heroin dependants attending the Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hos...