Answered By: Addiction Specialist

Answer: There is a myth that snorting (or smoking) heroin will not cause an overdose, but this is absolutely not true. The amount of heroin needed to cause an overdose depends on both the purity of the heroin and the tolerance of the user. An addict with a high tolerance will require more heroin to experience the high and to overdose while someone with a lower tolerance will require less. Heroin is an opiate and opiate users can have vastly different tolerances from one another. For example, a longtime heroin user with a large tolerance will require an amount of heroin to experience a high that divided up would be enough to kill four users with low tolerances. Typically, the longer an addict uses heroin, the greater their tolerance. However, when someone stops using heroin, their tolerance will eventually return to within the normal range. This is one reason why many overdoses occur when someone relapses after not using for a long period. They purchase and use the same amount of heroin as they did before they stopped but because their tolerance has decreased, this amount is now enough to kill them.

Answered on: October 13, 2008