Cultural Cachet of Heroin

The 80s anti-heroin message has been too firmly drummed into me and people in my social world for it to ever seem something to try. I'm older and clued up, now, and I know that its intrinsic danger is only addiction, not obscene physical effects (yes, I know in the real, scuzzy world of too much or too little purity, this is different) but still, no. Not cool, not at all. Have heard of the odd friend of a friend who has done it, that's about as far as it goes.

agreed. do you think those 80s anti-heroin messages were among the most effective anti-drug campaigns ever launched? especially as anti-drug campaigns are usually so weak and useless, and this one really seems to have worked

Well I can't even really recall any others.

All this said, I'm not sure how cool I am, so maybe my experience isn't that relevant. And I've never found attraction to the forbidden a very strong force, certainly not in terms of a measure of how cool something is.

cuh, you'd think the guy never saw pulp fiction or trainspotting

seeing Zammo ghostly white and out of his bonce was enough of a deterrent for me i guess. funny tho that 'Just Say No' seemed to work despite the irritating 'command' nature of the slogan.

i don't think any other drug had such a graphic, balls-out scare campaign. the only thing like it that i can think of is pictures of diseased lungs or old men with tracheotomies to keep you from cigarettes, but even that stops short of actual corpses. also i would imagine that most first associate heroin with intravenous use, and needles tend to give people the fear. i think everyone i know who has tried it did so after realizing that it doesn't have to be shot.

Heroin is always cool in the sense that people will be attracted to it because it is always the most "OHMIGOD you did WHAT drug?!?!" that actually sounds fun and exciting (even though it isn't.) Plus heroin has by far the neatest works, subculture, history, artistic cache, stereotypes, whatnot (well actually acid may exceed it in some of those, but LSD has that terrible baggage of hippies associated with it.)

my understanding is that it was most popular in the '50s-'60s

(and remember in carlito's way when he gets out of jail in '75 after being in for 5 years and he's all confused that no one's selling heroin anymore, everyone's on coke?)

Who here has done heroin, what was it like? I'm genuinely curious (no, I'm not trying it myself).

I have only ever done one kind of heroin, the black tar you find in Texas. It never, not even the first time, gave me the sort of rush you see described and depicted in books/movies like Trainspotting. Always just a mild euphoria. I'd always be able to walk into a crowd and talk to people after doing a hit without anyone being the wiser. Others I knew had a much stronger reaction to it though.

I've been told that if tar didn't do it for me, then the purer powder you find in the northeast would. I've never tried it (hopefully never will).

its intrinsic danger is only addiction

This isn't exactly correct because people on high doses of heroin are strange and annoying to be around like drunks. That's a side effect for sure for the user and their associates even though it's hard to measure. But that's true of people on high doses of eg antidepressants and stuff as well. No-one seems to think this is very significant though.

"its intrinsic danger is only addiction"

what does this even mean? "only"?

There was a resurgance of heroin chic in the 90s. Whenever there is a huge campaign against drugs, there will be a backlash about a decade later, as the indoctrinated kids grow up and try to rebel against that repression - the 90s heroin revival was a direct product of the 80s anti-drug hysteria, IMHO.

And the more extreme the anti-drug hysteria, the greater the backlash. Something is as cool as it is societally unacceptable.

The heroin revival faded because it became socially acceptible. The more junkies you actually meet, the more you realise that it isn't cool, it's just boring and sad. The most effective fight against heroin is not Nancy Reagan style hysteria, but actually, it's "Heroin is so passe".

When I first moved to NYC in 1981, the lower east side drug scene was entering its heyday. Sometimes it seemed like dope was easier to score than pot! Sometimes it seemed like everybody involved in the music scene (except for Sonic Youth) was a junkie. Brought up on Burroughs and the Velvets, I was fascinated by the whole phenomenon but miracuously I never tried the shit. Probably the only smart choice I made in my wayward youth.
Any cultural cachet associated w/heroin use evaporates once you witness somebody in withdrawl, i.e. dopesick. Or get ripped off by a desperate junkie. Or get threatened by a local dealer because you dare to walk down his street when you aren't looking to score.
When I think of all the promise lost to OD's and AIDS, all the lives destroyed by heroin use, I get depressed and angry. Even the people I know who survived brief periods of addiction, snorting not shooting, sacrificed some of their souls in the process.
This question is the stupidest thing I've seen here. Peace.

I've had ppl very near to me suffer b/c of heroin (or rather, suffer because they were trying to kick the habit, which they eventually managed thank God); don't think they saw it as particularly cool as opposed to other drugs, it was more of a hippie "try everything!" kinda deal.

I don't think this question is stupid, it's just a bit of sociology/cultural analyzing innit.

lovebug, i had a friend die of heroin. the question is not facetious.

shouldn't have called yr question "stupid." sorry. hard for me to be objective about it, which I now realize you fully understand.
couple days ago I walked past a teenage girl, sitting in front of a hotel on my block. she was twirling her keychain, danging a couple of NA chits. it really upset me, this shit never ends.
again, excuse my sermonizing. just a self-righteous old hippie sounding off...considering the bales of weed I've smoked, I've got no business preaching about drugs.

re:the graphic anti heroin ads being seen as a factor-i dont remember the eighties anti heroin campaigns,although obviously growing up i was aware of the various dangers,etc,but surely pills have had a fairly "graphic,balls out scare campaign"?
i mean the photos of that girl a while ago who took two pills and the photo of her body in hospital was all over the papers

i know a few people vaguely who've tried heroin once but really i dont think it has much of a cultural cachet in ireland at all,certainly most people i know,myself included,wouldn't even consider taking it