We have been seeing younger people use. It has been fairly dramatic. These drugs are becoming equal opportunity drugs. Heroin is still considered a super-cool drug, and it has high risk associated with it. It's probably the mystique of the drug.'' Like the stimulant and hallucinogen Ecstasy, another favorite drug of the moment, heroin plays to girls' insecurities.
Users lose their appetite, and so lose weight.
The ''heroin girl'' look has been glamorized recently, from ashen, wafer-thin runway models to anthems by grunge bands. All this has recast heroin in a more favorable light for this generation of youths. Heroin, a narcotic derived from the opium poppy, was developed in the 1880s as a pain reliever and substitute for highly addictive morphine. Scientists soon found that heroin is even more addictive. It was made illegal in the United States in 1914.