Smoking heroin with cannabis versus injecting heroin

Abstract Background In several countries, especially in Africa, the dominant method of heroin intake is smoking a joint of cannabis laced with heroin. There is no data exploring the impact of smoking heroin with cannabis on treatment outcomes.Aim To compare treatment outcomes between people who inject heroin and people who smoke heroin with cannabis.

Methodology

Three hundred heroin users were assessed on admission to inpatient rehabilitation and after treatment. We compared drug use, psychopathology, criminality, social functioning and general health between heroin injectors and heroin-cannabis smokers at treatment entry, and at 3 and 9 months after rehabilitation.

Conclusions

Heroin users who do not inject drugs but use other routes of administration may have increased risk for relapse to heroin use after inpatient rehabilitation and should therefore have equal access to harm reduction treatment services. Advocating a transition from injecting to smoking heroin in an African context may pose unique challenges.

Background

Injecting and chasing heroin are the most common methods of heroin use described in the literature. Injecting heroin is reported to pose the most harmful effects due to risks of overdose, transmission of blood borne viruses, more severe symptoms of dependence, longer heroin-using careers and higher rates of criminality and homelessness [1]. ‘Chasing the dragon’ is a method of heroin use whereby users inhale the vapour produced by heating heroin over a foil.