Careers with Heroin

This report examines heroin use careers within a sample of 147 Black male heroin addicts and their nonaddicted friends. Based on the extent of their heroin use, subjects were classified into the following subgroups: "light" experimenters, "moderate" experimenters, "heavy" experimenters, and addicts. Our findings indicate that no single career line of pattern characterizes all heroin users. While some users quickly progress from initiation to heroin to regular, intermittent use or "chipping" to daily heroin use and physical dependence, others are deflected at various points along the way. In this report we describe some of the sociobehavioral processes or career contingencies associated with movement from one level of heroin use to the next.