Heroin isn't significantly more addictive than cigarettes.
You can also easily overdose from nicotine, its just that this is mitigated by the relatively slow delivery mechanism, which makes it so that you get terribly sick before you could consume lethal quantities.
If we can come up with an effective delivery method then heroin would be no more dangerous than cigarettes (sort of, you still can't, for example, drive on heroin, but also it doesn't destroy your body long term).
Perhaps heroin could be adultrated with a chemical that causes nausea when consumed in an amount proportional to a dangerous level of heroin. This would help heroin users build the same negative associations with high doses that cigarette smokers do, and could make them unable to consume more.
While I enjoy the concept that heroin might be in some way similar to nocotine beyond both of the substances being tangible psychoactive, it does frighten me that this is actually an opinion people legitimately have.
Given that when the supply chain of heroin is disrupted the most statistically significant cause of eratic behaviour in users is that it just hurts so much I suspect its a little different to nicotine.
If you are interested in understanding drivers of addiction I would recommend looking at cases where people are forced into withdrawals.
Although I recall another article published ages ago (early 80s) which had an interesting economic analysis of the elasticity of heroin prices, to paraphrase, resulting from what is essentially inflicting pain on users until they will pay yur asking price.
I would love someone to draw the connections to nictonine withdrawals
Symptoms of nicotine withdrawal - agitation, anxiety, difficulty concentrating.
Without access to heroin or opiates, you are in for 7 days of anguish, intense feelings of guilt, shame, darkness, self recrimination, horrible introspection, and if given the chance to end the suffering you will take more heroin, putting you back at square one.
If you soldier on, you are in for at least 3 weeks of not feeling yourself.
Best bet is to detox with suboxone, then taper suboxone, do not stay on suboxone more than 30 days or you will just be addicted to that.
Gabapentin will really help the process, you will feel almost normal after stopping the suboxone.
If you have friends addicted, this is the most pain free way to get them off.
Heroin -> suboxone 30 days -> gabapentin 30-60 days.
That recipe can get anyone with a habit off heroin almost painlessly.
Depending on the length of your habit, you might still not feel great after all that. Cannabis and tianeptine are your best friends in that case. That will get you back in shape.
After this you will see that heroin, while beautifully seductive and glorious, is a dead end in prohibitionist america.
I believe it only would have a place for someone elderly and infirmed, who could take it without interruption for the rest of their life. For those cases I think it is underused.
If you are young and healthy, it will only make your life worse than it was before you started.
You can also easily overdose from nicotine, its just that this is mitigated by the relatively slow delivery mechanism, which makes it so that you get terribly sick before you could consume lethal quantities.
If we can come up with an effective delivery method then heroin would be no more dangerous than cigarettes (sort of, you still can't, for example, drive on heroin, but also it doesn't destroy your body long term).
Perhaps heroin could be adultrated with a chemical that causes nausea when consumed in an amount proportional to a dangerous level of heroin. This would help heroin users build the same negative associations with high doses that cigarette smokers do, and could make them unable to consume more.