Heroin

Veteran heroin users call it "chasing the dragon." It's the relentless pursuit of addicts to match the euphoria of their first time high. Once you've experienced your first high on heroin, you can never exceed it, and addiction is usually for life. Thus the importance of videos like these to head potential addicts off at the pass. Edited and presented in MTV style, this video shows that heroin is no longer just the domain of desperate street people. Brad Taylor, a likeable and smart high school athlete experimented with liquor, pot, and cocaine, then suddenly and shockingly was dead from a heroin overdose. Users discuss the horrible side effects of withdrawal. "What's so cool about throwing up on yourself?" asks a veteran heroin user from jail on Ryker's Island, "I'm not cool, I'm a loser." But the most decisive moment for most self conscious high school kids will be the scene when an addict demonstrates how his teeth have turned black and fallen out from constant use. That, I believe, will be enough reason for most young people to not even tease the dragon, let alone chase it. Videos like this are so important, it's a shame they are sometimes priced like designer drugs themselves. Still, this is highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (R. Ray)