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Every Picture Tells a Story – Don’t It?

[By Anonymous Emergency Room Physician]

What is Heroin?

Heroin is a highly addictive and rapidly acting opiate (a drug that is derived from opium). Specifically, heroin is produced from morphine, which is a principal component of opium. Opium is a naturally occurring substance that is extracted from the seedpod of the opium poppy.

What Does it Look Like?

The appearance of heroin can vary dramatically. In the eastern United States, heroin generally is sold as a powder that is white (or off-white) in color. (Generally, pure heroin is a whiter the color, because variations in color result from the presence of impurities). In the western United States, most of the heroin available is a solid substance that is black in color. This type of heroin, known as black tar, may be sticky (like tar) or hard to the touch. Powdered heroin that is a dirty brown color also is sold in the western United States.

Source: http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs3/3843/index.htm

What is a Drug Mule?

According to Wikipedia, a mule or courier is someone who smuggles something with him or her (as opposed to sending by mail, etc.) across a national border, including bringing in to and out of an international plane, especially a small amount, transported for a smuggling organization. Sometimes the goods are hidden in the bag or vehicle of an innocent person, who does not know about this, for the purpose of retrieving the goods elsewhere. In the case of transporting illegal drugs, the term drug mule applies. Kinder Surprise and Easter Egg are both common slang terms for drug mules. Methods of smuggling include hiding the goods in a vehicle, luggage or clothes, strapping them to one’s body, or using the body as container. The latter method is mainly applied for heroin and cocaine, and sometimes for ecstasy. It is often done by swallowing latex balloons (often condoms, or fingers of latex gloves) or special pellets filled with the goods, and recovering them from the feces later (such a smuggler is called a swallower or internal carrier; the practice is also called body packing or body stuffing). It is a common, but medically dangerous way of smuggling small amounts of drugs: a mule can die if a packet bursts or leaks before exiting the body. Other methods of carrying drugs within the body include insertion of the package directly into the anus or vagina. This method is obviously far more vulnerable to body cavity searches.

Assessment

People are sometimes X-rayed at airports etc, to check for drugs, as seen above  in this X-ray of more than 70 ingested heroin pellets. Then, when the ingested drug containers, or the mules’ intestines, rupture – I get to see em’ – or maybe the coroner?  Every picture tells a story – don’t it?

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Filed under: Drugs and Pharma | Tagged: black tar, drug mule, Easter Egg, heroin, heroin pellets, Kinder Surprise, opium, What is a Drug Mule? | 4 Comments »