Heroin or what?

It doesn't sound like your trip was a pleasant one. Given the number of drugs — natural, synthetic, prescription, non–prescription, etc. — available today, there is no shortage of agents with which to "cut" other drugs, such as heroin, speed, and marijuana. Cutting, or incorporating one drug into another, is commonly done to either dilute one of the drugs, bringing its purity and price down, or to change the nature of one of the drug's effects. Whatever the purpose of cutting, its practice is not always known to the buyers and users, which may well have been the case with you and your friend. Yes, pure heroin tends to deliver more subdued results than those you experienced, but it would be impossible for Alice to say with any certainty what else might have been in your bag.

Alice is glad that you recovered from your unexpected journey. Your bad trip illustrates one serious risk of drug use today — especially heroin use. It's always terribly distressing to hear about unsuspecting first-time or long-time drug users who overdose because what they thought was pure turned out to be anything but unadulterated. Ironically, the overall purity of street heroin has increased during the past few years, in part due to dealers' desires to please and maintain their clients — there's nothing like customers who can't stop coming back for more. Consequently, some heroin snorters, unaware of their dope's potency, go overboard and overdose.

Recent accounts of such incidents, plus in-depth information about the biological mechanisms of heroin, usage trends, and resources for help, can be found in the Related Q&As listed below.