Heroin drought in the South West

Apparently the police are doing well in their fight against heroin trafficking to the UK as there has been a severe shortage of heroin across the Midlands, into Mersey side and especially in Bristol, Cardiff and Newport.

Drug users are reporting heroin has been increasingly harder to come by over the last few weeks and the little that is about, is of a poor quality. This has got me thinking, how does this affect the heroin user? Some I know have actually stopped using, preferring to sit out the drought and wait for something better to come along. But from my past experience the usual response is one of desperation; frantic phone calls and a search to rival that of the 'great escape' to find something of some kind of quality. If that fails, people will buy whatever they can get their hands on to see them through. 

This can be dangerous, more so to the IV heroin user, as the only gear they can get their hands on is very weak, containing a very high percentage of adulterants and can cause even more damage to veins, liver etc than the heroin they're used to using plus of course they need to use more of it due to it's weak nature.

More worrying though is what happens when stronger gear finally makes it way through to street level. How a drought normally works is that there is a lot of rubbish gear around for a month or so, interspersed with gear of a better quality but only available in small amounts for a very limited time. So, everyone's tolerance drops during this time (quite severely in a lot of cases) and they're also injecting more gear in every hit. Then as quick as it has come, it's gone, and everything goes back to 'normal'.

It's obvious what can happen during this time - lots of overdoses. People aren't prepared for the stronger heroin and by the time you find out it can be too late. Two types of heroin can be exactly the same in colour and consistency etc but be very different in strength. Nobody believes a dealer when they tell you their gear is top quality and to take it easy - because they always say that, even if their gear is shite!

So I'd like to ask people to be careful and warn others to be careful too - the drought won't last forever so if you're going to use IV heroin then ask questions of fellow addicts about the gear your buying and if there is any doubt just push a little in, wait for it to hit you, settle into it, find out how strong it is before you put the whole hit in. If it is strong you can always keep it in the pin until a bit later.

To reach recovery you need to stay alive long enough for everything to click into place - use safely!