heroin addiction/withdrawal?

Question by mikky: heroin addiction/withdrawal?
If someone was addicted to heroin how long would the withdrawal symptoms last?

How long after discontinuing the drug do the withdrawal symptoms appear?

What are the symptoms of withdrawal?

(im writing a a short story)

Best answer:

Answer by toxdoc333
In a heroin addict, the drug must be present in sufficient concentrations otherwise withdrawal signs and symptoms begin. Since heroin has a half-life of about 3 minutes, and it takes about 7 half lives for a drug to (for all practical purposes) disappear from the blood, heroin drops quickly. However, in the process of metabolism, another opiate is formed (morphine) which prevents withdrawal since it is also an opiate. Morphine has a longer half life than heroin but still relatively fast (about 2 hours). The short half-lives of these drugs require multiple doses to be self administered throughout the day. Depending on your tolerance (and doing some rough math), a hard core addict probably needs to shoot up about twice a day but this varies greatly with tolerance, quality of drug, dose of drug, body size, metabolism and other factors (that probably go well beyond what you are writing about). Hope that helps.

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