The ageing heroin user: career length, clinical profile and outcomes across 36 months.
OBJECTIVE
The study examined the relationships between length of career (LOC), clinical presentation and outcomes across 36 months among a cohort of 615 heroin users.


METHODS
Longitudinal cohort study.


RESULTS
At baseline, each additional year of heroin use was associated with increased likelihood of: being male, exposure to treatment, having been imprisoned, daily injecting, lifetime and recent polydrug use, having overdosed, poorer physical health and reduced likelihood of heroin smoking. In contrast, LOC was not related to frequency of heroin use, current polydrug use, recent heroin overdose, recent imprisonment, recent criminality or psychopathology. There were also no associations between LOC and outcomes across 36 months in terms of treatment, drug use, crime, severe psychiatric disability or major depression. Longer LOC was associated across 36 months, however, with daily injecting, poorer physical health, severe physical disability and poorer mental health.


CONCLUSIONS
The data point to the maintenance of heroin-related harms well into the third decade of use.
Darke
Shane
S
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. s.darke@unsw.edu.au
Mills
Katherine L
KL
Ross
Joanne
J
Williamson
Anna
A
Havard
Alys
A
Teesson
Maree
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006556:Heroin Dependence / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000150:complications; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome