From: anon@penet.fi (CrAsH)
Subject: Snorting/Shooting experiment
Date: 1997/02/21
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard

I was reading through some of the archives, and came across an old
debate about the effects of snorting versus shooting opiates. There was
much controversy, with the majority of people leaning towards the
popular opinion that when injected, all effects and possible withdrawal
are significantly greater.

The result of my independent study was as follows:

 1. A long time user (I can only speak for my own research, I am sure 
this is not the rule) experienced no greater effects from injection of 
identical amounts of opiates, other than the onset of the drug.        

 2. A new user, on the other hand, faces a much greater risk of
OD with injection, and does experience a much greater difference in the
ingestion method than a user with a high tolerance. Newbies have OD'd
on 5 dollar bags when injected.
        
3. Withdrawal from snorting causes greater discomfort with
gastro-intestinal symptoms, and has a longer withdrawal period.
[...]

====================================================================
From: anon@penet.fi (CrAsH)
Subject: Re: why shooters have easier withdraw??
Date: 1997/01/13
newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.drugs.hard

        Well speaking from years of addiction, the two differences I
have noticed for me are:

1. Yes snorting can require 3x as much but........

2. The initial rush is not as intense, but afterwards feels
the same if more is consumed (roughly 2-3x as much of the same stuff).

3. The withdrawal is worse from snorting such large amounts!
   
My only guess it that when one snorts it, it gets absorbed by
the stomach and other parts of the body that would not take place with
injection.
[...]

====================================================================

From: staring@my.screen (Samson)
Subject: Shooting v. sniffing (wasRe: why shooters have easier withdraw??
Date: 1997/01/13
newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard

[...]
Interesting. I never had anything to which to compare sniffing: that's the
only method I've ever used. But I suspected that something like this was
true. Watching a friend shoot, I noticed that there were some dramatic
differences in her experience from mine. The most obvious was the initial
rush I observed in her, something which did not seem to mirror anything in
my own experience. Also obvious was the fact that I had to sniff about
five times (or more) the amount she shot in order to be "satisfied", even
though my tolerance was probably not as great as hers.

Of course, for each shot that she would take, there would be several
"sniffing sessions" for me. And as I reached the "terminal sessions",
those that brought me to the point of satisfaction, it seemed as though I
had reached a "haze level" comparable to hers shortly after her first
injection. My hypothesis about this is that what I had done was build up a
level of drug in my system over time, to the point where the next addition
to that level brought me to a "threshold", totally gone. (It took quite a
few months of (albeit infrequent) use to be able to reach this level
without getting a terrible headache first).

Now, one thing that has to be kept in mind about sniffing is that, all
other things being equal, it is not much less efficient as a means of
delivering heroin to the CNS than shooting. It is considerably slower, but
not much less complete, milligram for milligram. But all other things are
not equal: particles and chunks of powder get stuck in hair and mucous,
some drug ends up in the stomach (where absorption _is_ considerably less
efficient), and there is only so much that can be sniffed before the pipes
get "clogged up" and need time to be cleared out. But ultimately, most of
what gets stuck in the nasal passages without being absorbed initially,
assuming it is not sneezed or picked out, dissolves and gets absorbed. The
upshot of this, I tend to think, is that a sniffer not only needs to
consume more drug to get as high as a shooter, but (given a similar level
of tolerance) actually ends up absorbing more. So that someone with a
heavy sniffing habit "exposes" his opioid receptors to more heroin than
someone with a shooting habit.

[...]

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