Francis Moraes
Encyclopedia
Francis Moraes whose online pseudonym is Dr. H, is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of three opiate
Opiate
In medicine, the term opiate describes any of the narcotic opioid alkaloids found as natural products in the opium poppy plant.-Overview:Opiates are so named because they are constituents or derivatives of constituents found in opium, which is processed from the latex sap of the opium poppy,...

 related non-fiction books and hundreds of articles.

Moraes trained as a research physicist and chemist and attained a Ph.D. in physics. He became interested in the heroin subculture in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 -- the number two most vibrant heroin city in the United States, at that time (according to DEA statistics). After that, he expanded his perspective, spending numerous years studying the heroin subcultures in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay area. Francis Moraes has been a notable part of the harm reduction
Harm reduction
Harm reduction refers to a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with recreational drug use and other high risk activities...

 movement, particularly as it relates to heroin and other opioids. He writes from this perspective with the stated intent of neither demonizing nor glorifying opioids, aiming only to provide drug users, scholars, and other curious readers alike an objective perspective on the issue. His work is generally considered neutral in content and calm in tone, but he has his detractors who point out biases and inconsistency.

Moraes differs from other authors in stressing the comparatively minor effects of opoid use and the profound pain associated with opioid withdrawal. Heroin in particular, is commonly considered an extremely potent euphoric; Moraes stresses that the euphoria of heroin is actually rather subtle and very often overwhelmed by the nausea that is also produced by the drug. Moraes also counters common descriptions of the withdrawal that opioid addicts experience when they stop using. Many authors compare opioid withdrawal to a bad flu; Moraes counters this idea—particularly in his later work where he stresses the importance of a dysfunctional endorphin system on the management of pain (e.g. Little Book of Opium).

Currently, Francis Moraes continues to write for Heroin Helper and is in the process of publishing the second edition of Heroin User's Handbook with his new company Frankly Curious Media. Most of his writing now centers on grammar, books, and philosophy and can be found at Frankly Curious. He generally uses the first name "Frank" for his non-drug related writing.

Works

  • The Little Book of Opium
  • The Little Book of Heroin
  • The Heroin User's Handbook

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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