Heroin uncertainties: Exploring users’ perceptions of fentanyl-adulterated and -substituted 'heroin'

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Heroin uncertainties: Exploring users’ perceptions of fentanyl-adulterated and -substituted 'heroin'

18 October 2017
International Journal of Drug Policy

By Daniel Ciccarone, Jeff Ondocsin, Sarah G. Mars

The US is experiencing an unprecedented opioid overdose epidemic fostered in recent years by regional contamination of the heroin supply with the fentanyl family of synthetic opioids. Since 2011 opioid-related overdose deaths in the East Coast state of Massachusetts have more than tripled, with 75% of the 1374 deaths with an available toxicology positive for fentanyl. Fentanyl is 30–50X more potent than heroin and its presence makes heroin use more unpredictable. A rapid ethnographic assessment was undertaken to understand the perceptions and experiences of people who inject drugs sold as ‘heroin’ and to observe the drugs and their use.

Methods: A team of ethnographers conducted research in northeast Massachusetts and Nashua, New Hampshire in June 2016, performing (n = 38) qualitative interviews with persons who use heroin. Results:(1) The composition and appearance of heroin changed in the last four years;(2) heroin is cheaper and more widely available than before; and (3) heroin ‘types’ have proliferated with several products being sold as ‘heroin’. These consisted of two types of heroin (alone), fentanyl (alone), and heroin– fentanyl combinations. In the absence of available toxicological information on retail-level heroin, our research noted a hierarchy of fentanyl discernment methods, with embodied effects considered most reliable in determining fentanyl’s presence, followed by taste, solution appearance and powder color. This paper presents a new ‘heroin’ typology based on users’ reports.