"Chasing the dragon" (a slang phrase of Cantonese origin from Hong Kong) refers to inhaling the smoke from heated morphine, heroin or opium that has been placed on a piece of foil. The 'chasing' occurs as the user gingerly keeps the liquid moving in order to keep it from coalescing into a single, unmanageable mass.[1]
In American drug use slang, "chasing the dragon" refers to the elusive pursuit of the ultimate high in the usage of some particular drug. The term alludes to the feeling that the next ingested dosage of the drug will result in a nirvana that seems and feels imminent and conclusive, yet upon penultimate consumption never quite yields the promised experience—leading to the desire for the next dose that still promises the same—thus chasing the dragon but never catching it (like "chasing after the wind [a wild wind] " a biblical term). Most common recreational drugs germane to the term include inhaled cocaine, heroin, nitrous oxide, inhaled amphetamines, and sometimes shorter-acting psychedelic compounds such as mushrooms, DMT, MDMA, and even marijuana when used in ritual form. [Ed. BGT]
"Chasing the dragon" can also refer to the practice of prostitution by some female heroin addicts to fuel their drug habits.Template:Fact
"Chasing the dragon" as an ingestion method has been accomplished with various vaporizing apparatus, including traditional opium pipes. A makeshift method involves putting the substance in an empty teapot, heating it over a stove, and inhaling through the nozzle via the nose or mouth. Heating on a small piece of aluminum foil and inhaling through a tube (usually a cut-up pen or section of aluminum foil rolled into a tube) is another common method.
Such ingestion may pose less immediate danger to the user than injecting heroin, due to eliminating the risk of transmission of HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases through needle sharing, as well as the stress that injection puts on veins. The technique also avoids the delivery of heroin into the bloodstream instantaneously, as is the case with injection, a fact which may reduce one's chances of accidentally overdosing. A small puff can be inhaled as a method of gauging the strength of the heroin.Template:Fact Also, the lungs can act to filter out additional pollutants that otherwise would pass directly into the bloodstream, however, in any case, it is never harmless to expose the lungs to any kind of smoke as inhaling heroin may lead to toxic leukoencephalopathy.[2]
"Chasing the dragon" can also refer to the act of following a legendary creature with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits that features in the myths of many cultures.
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