Street Names

The following is a partial list of the many street names that have been used for heroin over the years. The slang used for heroin in your area may include some of these terms, and may include totally new terms.

• AIP (heroin from Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan)
• Al Capone
• Aunt Hazel
• Bad bundle (inferior quality heroin)
• Balloon (a penny balloon that contains narcotics)
• Beast
• Big H
• Bindle (a small packet of heroin or cocaine)
• Black pearl
• Black stuff
• Black tar
• Blanco (Spanish)
• Bonita (Spanish)
• Brick gum
• Brown
• Brown sugar
• Caballo (Spanish)
• Caca
• Capital H
• Channel swimmer (someone who injects heroin)
• Charley
• Chasing the dragon (inhaling the fumes of heated heroin)
• Chiva
• China cat
• China White
• Cook down (process in which users liquefy heroin in order to inject it)
• Crap (low quality heroin)
• Cura (Spanish)
• Cut-deck (heroin mixed with powdered milk)
• Deck (1 to 15 grams of heroin
• also known as a bag)
• Dog
• Dope
• Fix (heroin, and also "a dose")
• Foo foo
• Gato (Spanish,)
• Goma (Spanish)
• H
• Hard stuff
• Hero
• Hero of the underworld
• Heroina (Spanish,)
• Horse
• Junk
• Mainlining (shooting heroin directly into a vein)
• Mexican brown
• Mexican horse
• Mexican mud
• Mud
• Nickel bag ($5 worth of heroin)
• Nod (heroin
• or the effects of heroin)
• Number 4
• Number 8
• Nurse,
• Polvo (Spanish)
• Rider (5 kilograms of heroin sometimes provided at no cost per 100 kilograms of cocaine imported from Colombia)
• Skag
• Skin-popping (shooting heroin just below the skin’s surface)
• Smack
• Spoon(1/16 ounce of heroin; paraphernalia used to prepare heroin for injection)
• Stuff
• Tar
• Z (1 ounce of heroin)