Heroin is a great drug. Most of the negativity associated with it is the result of the fact that it is illegal (illegal things are bad for some reason). Pure heroin is harmless, hell they use it in hospitals in countries which are not the united states. Even in the USA they use morphine in hospitals, the difference between these chemicals: two acetyl groups, as noted above. All things which are used in hospitals are infallible.
So if the chemical itself isn’t the problem, then the problem must be social. Which means humans have a problem integrating this substance into our lives. Or more accurately: society has a problem dealing with the fact of its existence. The government likes to pretend that it is synonymous with society. In trying to come to terms with the existence of heroin the government has taken the approach that it will not deal with the problem, and instead tries to pretend drug addiction isn’t really there and sweep it under the carpet with submachine guns. Obviously, the government doesn’t know how to deal with those things it pretends are its problems. History has shown that you can't hide social problems with guns and jail, instead you run the risk of enriching the arms industry and the illegal drug trade. The eternal conflict which is the war on drugs will continue to be a barrier to society reorienting itself to come to terms with the existence of drugs. Instead conflict itself will continue to sustain the hegemony of power relations within society, while simultaneously ensuring the marginalization and dehumanization of the periphery. Because the fat rich white guy always wins.
This approach has resulted in much of the negativity associated with heroin. Having the buying and selling of heroin simultaneously illegal and in high demand has created this fancy thing called "the black market". Part of the nature of a black market is that things there are grossly overpriced, especially on a money maker like heroin. The high cost coupled with addiction makes people do things for money (or drugs) they wouldn’t normally do, like: sell their cars, not pay bills, not buy food for their children, rob banks, prostitute themselves, and the all the other things they tell you drugs will make you do. The black market makes drug dealers, terrorists and organized crime types RICH. As well as providing a good source of income and incarceration to some of the poorest Americans. Thanks Uncle Sam!
Black markets have another neat aspect: no oversight. This means that there is no guarantee of purity or safety of the product. You could be buying rat poison for all you know, thankfully, most dealers are not that stupid and realize that killing they’re customers is stupid and unprofitable. However, most dealers do cut drugs with something. Stretching out the product with baking soda is an easy way to make a profit. For regular heroin users, it is usually easy to spot a pattern. Heroin comes in bags, and bags are labeled by different brands (e.g. lightning, thug life, ill be back, bin laden, top gun, hot shots). Bags are purist when they first come out. The longer a brand has been out on the market the less pure (and the less full) it is likely to be; as the dealer stretches out his supply until the next shipment comes in. Sometimes, brands repeat themselves, or you get a new dealer, you’ve been out of town, or something screws up. And when the bags should be low in purity, unknown to the user it is actually kinda high. When this happens, people overdose. When junkies read about overdoses in the paper, they try to find out where they can get that stuff. Of course, this scenario only happens because the government lets it. It would be as if every 20th car in the show room blew up on the drive home. The government thinks that it can't allow this to happen, but dead impoverished drug addicts is OK.
Users of heroin may become dependent. This isn’t so bad, honestly. It can be kinda fun, if you want it. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t do heroin, kinda simple. The thing is, using heroin creates a chemical dependency, which is only bad if it interferes with "normal" life; for example: your archetypical dope fiend. When this happens, psychologists call this "addiction". Addiction is a purely psychological phenomena, that is, it is entirely socially constructed. Most of the bad things about heroin are the result of addiction to the drug. Yet, the addiction itself arises out of the context which is created by the prohibition and criminalization of heroin use itself. Without prohibition, most heroin addicts would be chemically dependent. Akin to diabetics, AIDS patients, or old people.
One can function fine on heroin. A user would be a little slower and more mellow, but in a world where everyone is complaining about stress I can't see how that could be bad. Your co-worker could be a heroin addict, you wouldn't even know unless they just shot up. Immediately after a heroin injection depending on the quality, the user may be in a stupor for a few minutes. This doesn't last long and is extremely euphoric, the eye sight may be blurred and body movement a tad sloppy. Within 20 minutes or so the user is functional and euphoric for several hours.
Everyone would be better off if people would stop being so stupid. If you don't like heroin then don't use it. If you like heroin and want to use it, then do it. It's that simple. This situation is happening RIGHT NOW, the difference being that people who don't like heroin hate looking at people who do. So they shoot them and put them in giant cages, consequently ensuring future demand for the drug by engineering jobless poverty. That's pretty dumb. You can’t have poor people unless the rich are afraid of them.