ABSTRACT
What is it like to take heroin? Can it be described at all in words? Why do people take it again and again? In this chapter we look at the way heroin users perceive their drug. In the final analysis, people take heroin because they want to do so. They may like the way it feels, or maybe they crave for it, or there may be a large gap in their life if they don’t take it. They may hope that they will live more effectively thereby, or perhaps that it will help them deal with mental or physical pain. Many users identify with a particular lifestyle and see it as a passport into some type of glamorous social set. The reasons are many and varied, and usually change over the course of a career.
