Both new and experienced users risk overdosing on heroin because it is impossible for them to know the purity of the heroin they are using. (Heroin sold on the street often is mixed with other substances such as sugar, starch, or quinine. An added risk results when heroin is mixed with poisons such as strychnine.) Heroin overdoses--which can result whether the drug is snorted, smoked, or injected--can cause slow and shallow breathing, convulsions, coma, and even death. Orally administered cocaine takes approximately 30 minutes to enter the bloodstream. The manufacture of a pound of meth creates 5-6 pounds of toxic waste. Minnesota drug officials closed down a meth lab in 2003 being operated in a ice-fishing shack. The cookers were dumping waste into the ice hole, poisoning the lake. Social issues of addiction focus on how heroin addicts relate to their environment, including interpersonal and family relationships, employment and legal problems. | 
