Heroin is an illegal, highly addictive drug. It is both the most abused and the most rapidly growing drug in the opiate family. It is typically sold as a white or brownish powder. There is also a form that is black and sticky known on the streets as "black tar heroin". Opiates are drugs that are derived from a naturally occurring substance found in the poppy plant. Although the purity of the heroin that reaches the streets is becoming greater, most street heroin is cut or diluted. Usually this is done with another drug, or a substance such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. Street heroin can also be cut with strychnine or other poisons. The reason

Heroin is a drug that can reach anyone. From a middle school honor roll student, to a college grad that made the dean's list, to a prostitute on the streets of Los Angeles. The path to heroin starts out very innocently. A rebellious teenager gives into a lot of peer pressure, and decides to take a hit of a cigarette. Once that is done, that downward spiral starts. After the teenager has become numb to the idea that cigarettes are bad, alcohol seems more and more enticing. After the rush of getting drunk becomes a bore, Marijuana may come into play. Once a teenager reaches this point, there are really two roads that they can choose. The one road, leads them into harder more powerful drugs, with greater addictions, such as heroin. The other road is a teenager that decides, enough is enough, and still has a chance to turn back and write off the previous drug use as any teenager rebellion. Much to often the first path is followed. Once the subject decides to take that first hit of the drug, it is almost always completely downhill from there.

Heroin and other hard drugs are ways for kids to rebel against society. It is there way of giving society "the finger". Often drug campaign's are too based on telling kids not to do the drug, where they should be trying to inform kids on what the drug can do to you and everyone you care about. If more kids knew exactly what they were getting into before they decided to take that first hit, maybe they could find a less destructive way of rebelling. The media is not helping, with the portrayal of the heroin addict model, living the high-life in Manhattan, or the street-wise guy in a movie called Pulp Fiction, heroin is almost glamorized. The big attraction to heroin for most kids and young adults though, is the fact that it is the last thing that society wants them to do. Instead of preaching against the use of heroin, maybe somebody needs to preach about it.

Heroin is a drug that destroys entire families. As the user starts to use heroin at first, it seems there is no problem, the parents of the user often don't even know about it. But almost always, the user will start stealing from their parents and family and even friends. When caught and cornered the addict will usually rebel in some way. This often turns into a huge fight. It isn't until a blowout fight like one of these happens, that the parents of the user finally realize that THEIR kid is a heroin addict. Many times younger siblings will follow in the path of their older sibling, and the cycle will start over again. Many heroin addicts are out on the street by themselves even by the age of 16 and sometimes less. The actions of the children in these family's many times lead to the parents divorce. Slowly but surely, like an infection, the drug will tear apart almost any family that it encounters.

Where as middle and upper class Americans l

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Approximate Word count = 1944
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)