How long will a heroin addict live?
**edit** Heroin overdoses are only rarely called true heroin overdoses because there are generally a multitude of other substances in the person’s system at the same time. It’s not because heroin is less dangerous (as the above implies). It usually happens when a recovering addict is on a methadone prescription, and heroin (and very usually Valium) are mixed. Because the recovering addict no longer has such a high tolerance, doses he/she used to take in the past can now be life threatening.