ABSTRACT
Heroin can be used as a medicine or as a drug of addiction or, indeed, as a means of obtaining occasional pleasure in the way that many people have a drink at weekends. But because people think of it as a ‘drug’, they often think it can only be harmful and unhealthy. Medical substances have numerous and variable effects, which can be put to good or harmful use. For this reason, doctors and pharmacists use the word ‘drug’ in a different sense from the public. A drug is any chemical or herbal substance that can be used to produce an effect on body function. Aspirin, ginseng and heroin are therefore all drugs. It does not matter whether or not they cause dependency or are abused by addicts, or whether the effects are predominantly harmful or beneficial.
