TNAG-0416-FCO40-462-Review-of-narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 68

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The chemical name for heroin is diacetylmorphine hydrochloride, a derivative of morphine which in turn is extracted from opium. Its use by doctors as a pain killer has been the subject of considerable controversy and the medical profession today generally prefers other less addicting analgesics.

Although opium contains many different substances, its activity

is primarily dependent on its morphine content. The amount of morphine present in various samples of raw opium varies to some extent but usually

averages 10 to 15 per cent. On a weight basis, therefore, morphine is roughly six to ten times as potent as opium.

Morphine is not usually consumed as such by addicts in Hong Kong but is more commonly converted by a comparatively simple chemical process into heroin. Heroin itself is approximately five to eight times as potent as morphine and therefore on a weight basis is roughly thirty to eighty times as potent as opium.

Not only is heroin more active than morphine but in addiction it

produces a greater illusion of well-being and is infinitely more harmful and addicting than morphine or opium.

METHODS OF CONSUMPTION

Heroin can be consumed in various ways. The majority of addicts in Hong Kong smoke it by a method called 'chasing the dragon' or by its variant 'playing the mouth organ'. To smoke the drug by the former method, several granules of heroin are mixed with barbitone and placed on a folded piece of tinfoil, which is heated by a taper, the resulting fumes being inhaled through a small tube of bamboo or rolled paper. The fumes arising from the movement of the molten powder on the tinfoil resemble the undulating tail of the dragon in Chinese mythology.

The use of a narrow tube to inhale the fumes is relatively difficult for a beginner and a match box cover is often substituted for it. This latter variation is called 'playing the mouth organ' because the inhaling action is very like that of a mouth organ player.