How Much Heroin Does it Take to Overdose?

How much heroin does it take to overdose? This can be a very complicated question to answer. There are many separate factors that determine the amount of heroin required to overdose. Heroin is an inconsistent drug, and the potency changes from batch to batch. The odds of an overdose also depend on the person abusing the drug and their medical history.

If you or a loved one is struggling with heroin abuse, it’s time to get informed about the risks of overdose and reach out to a heroin addiction treatment center in Jacksonville, FL today.

Let’s take a closer look at the causes behind a heroin overdose.

What Causes Overdose

Heroin is an opioid made from the common medication morphine.

Heroin works by attaching to receptors in the brain and acting as a central nervous system depressant. This means that it slows down physical reactions in the brain and body. This effect can become deadly if an individual takes too much of the drug. Overdose can happen for a variety of reasons, including the dose being too high, interaction with other drugs in the system, medical conditions, and a variety of other reasons.

How Much Heroin Does it Take to Overdose?

As stated before, this can be difficult to determine. Here are a few factors to keep in mind when considering just how hard it is to accurately predict how much heroin is needed for an overdose.

• Purity – Heroin is an illicit drug and this means that there is no regulation governing the purity of the substance. Some batches of heroin will be heavily diluted making them weaker than average. Other batches will be mixed with even more potent drugs such as fentanyl. This inability to really “know” what is really in a given batch makes an overdose far more likely.
• Polysubstance Abuse – Heroin is often used with other drugs, which increases the chances of an overdose. Using heroin with other depressants can have a compound effect, and lead to overdose. Combining heroin with stimulants can cause users to misjudge their dosage and take more of the drugs than their bodies are prepared for.
• Other Factors – Everything from medical conditions to severe changes in diet can have an impact on the amount of heroin needed to overdose.

How to Avoid Heroin Overdose

The safest way to answer the question “how much heroin does it take to overdose” is to never try to answer it. Even for longterm abusers, a dose that was “safe” might be an overdose later. Heroin is an unstable drug and the risk of overdose is always present.

The best ways to avoid an overdose is to educate yourself and your loved ones about heroin abuse. Reading this blog was just the first step. The next step is reaching to Beaches Recovery in Jacksonville, FL for help if you or a loved one is struggling with a substance abuse problem.

Beaches Recovery

Addiction can feel unbeatable, but it doesn’t have to be. If you or a loved one is struggling with substance abuse, reach out to our staff at Beaches Recovery for help today by calling us at 866.605.0532.