Yes, there is. Is it the norm? Not at all, but that doesn't change the fact that some people do use heroin in moderation and without it drastically impacting their lives.
This polarized look at heroin use further stigmatizes drug users and leads to those with problems (and casual users who are having trouble not letting it get out of hand) not getting the help they deserve.
Playing russian roulette isn't responsible just because you don't get shot. There are many people who use it in moderation... until they don't. Until they make one too many "bit more won't hurt" type decisions. Or they lose their job or a family member dies or they just have a shitty day.
"responsible heroin use" is probably the stupidest phrase I've heard all day, and I've been watching CNN.
EDIT: And, by the way, calling a spade a spade and naming heroin as the scourge it is is not stigmatizing users.
I thought most overdoses are the result of variable potency which is the result of the prohibition. Are you saying that accidental overdose would be a significant danger for addicts if they had a reliable supply of predictable potency? If that is what you're saying, do you have any evidence to support that?
I do agree that easy access to powerful opiates is a recipe for disaster for people at risk for suicide. And I concede that the danger of a negative feedback loop is obvious.
That's like asking, "Does that mean you don't believe in responsible knife juggling?" One is going to kill you a lot more surely and quickly than the other, but neither is a good idea.
To say heroin and alcohol/tobacco are equivalent would be stupid. To say an addition to heroin has no similarities to an addition to alcohol/tobacco would also be stupid.
No, because it's completely true. Repeated use of either tobacco or alcohol cause definite harm - cancer for tobacco (note, not nicotine...), brain and liver damage for alcohol. Heroin doesn't. Long term opioid use can cause hyperalgesia for _some_ people, but by no means all, and that's really if you take them every day at high doses (and heroin is actually not so bad for this - it differs from opioid to opioid), which is a little weird since morphine is quite the opposite - I suspect this is because the active metabolite responsible for the primary effects (heroin is really a prodrug) is morphine-6-glucoronide (M6G), not actually morphine as many would expect.
This polarized look at heroin use further stigmatizes drug users and leads to those with problems (and casual users who are having trouble not letting it get out of hand) not getting the help they deserve.