This pamphlet examines the facts and consequences of heroin's recent resurgence from its 20-year eclipse by powder cocaine and crack as the favored drug of abuse.

It points out that the criminal chemists who produce today's heroin from the seedpod of the opium poppy are turning out a product 70 to 90 percent pure -- something seldom encountered in the drug's former heyday of the 1960s and 70s. As a result, it can be sniffed like cocaine, and does not have to be injected, removing the normal aversion to needles as a barrier to use.

The pamphlet describes heroin's appearance, lists its common street names and emphasizes that it is the most addictive drug known, actually modifying brain chemistry to heighten craving and make withdrawal suffering extremely severe.

The potentially lethal effects of an overdose are described, as are the behavior changes that characterize an addict.