WASHINGTON– Heroin addiction in the U.S. has become so widespread and has devastated so many lives. Knowing the signs of heroin use may save the life of someone you love.
Sgt. Paul Loconti with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office gave a frank talk about the drug during a recent town hall meeting in Purcellville, Virginia.
“Once you get to a certain level of heroin use, you really become a victim to the drug. It’s not like marijuana,” he warned.
Heroin is an opiate produced from poppy plants that can be smoked, snorted or injected. “It can be brown in color or white. It can be a sticky substance they call black tar,” said Loconti.
Heroin is often cut with another drug called fentanyl, but users don’t know how much fentanyl they’re getting.
“That’s a leading cause for people overdosing right now is the fact that in what they’re getting, the fentanyl levels are higher than people can handle.”
Users who go without the drug or try to quit face horrible withdrawal symptoms.
“The general rule is that in about three to four days after not using the drug, you’re going to get what they call ‘dope sick’. If you’ve ever had really bad flu symptoms, it’s like ten times worse than that.”
The vast majority of heroin that comes into Loudoun County from Baltimore and D.C. Many of the drug’s users are young, Loconti said.
“From what I’ve seen, the age demographic is definitely younger than you would have anticipated. When I say young, I’m talking like high school kids,” he said.
The sheriff’s office provided this list of signs that someone you know may be using heroin:
- small pieces of foil with burn marks
- needles
- burned and missing spoons
- small colored balloons
- cotton balls for filter for injecting
- cigarette filters for injecting
- bottle tops for cooking heroin powder
- increase in soda cans in bedroom and/or the bottoms of them cut up
- missing shoelaces and cut or long rubber bands
- cut up straws
- covering arms all the time
- lighters or candles
- expensive personal and household items missing
