What is speedballing?
This is when heroin and crack are mixed in the same needle and injected together. Why is it popular? The sedative-stimulant combination creates what is said to be a “double hit”. Heroin users also start taking crack to give them a lift, or “treat”, while crack users begin using heroin to get a gentler come-down from their crack-induced high. Taking both drugs in the same syringe therefore becomes a natural progression. What are the risks involved with speedballing? The main risk is overdosing, as the effect of each drug is harder to assess. Speedballers can use a bigger syringe and can also remain awake and not eat for three or four days. Subsequently they cannot remember how much they have taken and may take an accidental, but fatal, overdose. The practice also increases the spread of Hepatitis B and C and HIV. Speedballers will also inject between eight and 15 times a day, whereas heroin users will inject four to six times a day. Crack users can use their drug every 30 or 45 minutes.
OMG! i agree with thumper. Get her away from that stuff. Speedballing is a drug term for the mixing of heroin and cocaine. This is a potentially lethal concoction: the cocaine acts as a stimulant, raising the heartbeat, but its effects wear off more quickly than those of heroin, which in turn slows the heart. As a result, it is possible to experience a delayed “overdose” (technically, severe respiratory depression) when the stimulant wears off and the full effects of the heroin are felt in isolation. The term may be applied to the simultaneous use of any opiate drug with a stimulant, and methamphetamine has been used in place of cocaine. The term “speedball” was by consensus almost always in reference to an injection unless otherwise stated, but the popularization of the concept in recent years has meant that many people who insufflate heroin and cocaine now combine the two drugs in order to achieve the purported effects. Some people who use heroin also combine it with smoked freebase
