Charlie Parker Issues what interesting did you read? Parker's life was riddled with depression and heroin addiction. did he die from that? I don't know.
when did he start using heroin?
When did Charlie Parker start using heroin?
Parker's life was riddled with depression and heroin addiction. This addiction caused him to miss performances and be considered unemployable. He frequently resorted to busking, receiving loans from fellow musicians and admirers, and pawning his saxophones for drug money. Heroin use was rampant in the jazz scene, and users could acquire it with little difficulty.  Although he produced many brilliant recordings during this period, Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic. Heroin was difficult to obtain once he moved to California, where the drug was less abundant, so he used alcohol as a substitute. A recording for the Dial label from July 29, 1946, provides evidence of his condition. Before this session, Parker drank a quart of whiskey. According to the liner notes of Charlie Parker on Dial Volume 1, Parker missed most of the first two bars of his first chorus on the track, "Max Making Wax". When he finally did come in, he swayed wildly and once spun all the way around, away from his microphone. On the next tune, "Lover Man", producer Ross Russell physically supported Parker. On "Bebop" (the final track Parker recorded that evening) he begins a solo with a solid first eight bars; on his second eight bars, however, he begins to struggle, and a desperate Howard McGhee, the trumpeter on this session, shouts, "Blow!" at him. Charles Mingus considered this version of "Lover Man" to be among Parker's greatest recordings, despite its flaws. Nevertheless, Parker hated the recording and never forgave Ross Russell for releasing it. He re-recorded the tune in 1951 for Verve.  Parker's life took a turn for the worst when his 2 year old daughter tragically passed away from pneumonia. He attempted suicide twice in 1954, which landed him in a mental hospital.  When Parker received his discharge from the hospital, he was clean and healthy. Before leaving California, he recorded "Relaxin' at Camarillo" in reference to his hospital stay. He returned to New York, resumed his addiction to heroin and recorded dozens of sides for the Savoy and Dial labels, which remain some of the high points of his recorded output. Many of these were with his so-called "classic quintet" including Davis and Roach. CANNOTANSWER
July 29, 1946,
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was an extremely fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. He was known for the very clear, sweet and articulate note he could produce from the saxophone.

Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career on the road with Jay McShann. This, and the shortened form "Bird", continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise". Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.

Biography

Childhood
Charlie Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, at 852 Freeman Avenue, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, near Westport and later – in high school – near 15th and Olive Street. He was the only child of Charles Parker and Adelaide "Addie" Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African-American background. He attended Lincoln High School in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, just before joining the local musicians' union and choosing to pursue his musical career full-time. His childhood sweetheart and future wife, Rebecca Ruffin, graduated from Lincoln High School in June 1935.

Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his high school band where he studied under Bandmaster Alonzo Lewis. His mother purchased a new alto saxophone around the same time. His father, Charles Sr., was often required to travel for work, but provided some musical influence because he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit. He later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways. Parker's mother Addie worked nights at the local Western Union office. His biggest influence at that time was a young trombone player named Robert Simpson, who taught him the basics of improvisation.

Early career
In the mid-1930s, Parker began to practice diligently. During this period he mastered improvisation and developed some of the ideas that led to the later development of Bebop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, Parker said that he spent three to four years practicing up to 15 hours a day.

Bands led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten certainly influenced Parker. He played with local bands in jazz clubs around Kansas City, Missouri, where he perfected his technique, with the assistance of Buster Smith, whose dynamic transitions to double and triple time influenced Parker's developing style.

In late spring 1936, Parker played at a jam session at the Reno Club in Kansas City. His attempt to improvise failed when he lost track of the chord changes. This prompted Jo Jones, the drummer for Count Basie's Orchestra, to contemptuously take a cymbal off of his drum set and throw it at his feet as a signal to leave the stage. However, rather than discouraging Parker, the incident caused him to vow to practice harder, and turned out to be a seminal moment in the young musician's career when he returned as a new man a year later. Parker proposed to his wife, Rebecca Ruffin, the same year and the two were married on July 25, 1936. In the fall of 1936, Parker traveled with a band from Kansas City to the Ozarks for the opening of Clarence Musser's Tavern south of Eldon, Missouri. Along the way, the caravan of musicians had a car accident and Parker broke three ribs and fractured his spine. The accident led to Parker's ultimate troubles with painkillers and opioids, especially heroin. Parker struggled with drug use for the rest of his life.

Despite his near-death experience on the way to the Ozarks in 1936, Parker returned to the area in 1937 where he spent some serious time woodshedding and developing his sound. In 1938 Parker joined pianist Jay McShann's territory band. The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago and New York City. Parker made his professional recording debut with McShann's band.

New York City
In 1939 Parker moved to New York City, to pursue a career in music. He held several other jobs as well. He worked for nine dollars a week as a dishwasher at Jimmie's Chicken Shack, where pianist Art Tatum performed.  It was in 1939 in New York that Parker had his musical breakthrough that had begun in 1937 in the Missouri Ozarks. Playing through the changes on the song "Cherokee", Parker discovered a new musical vocabulary and sound that shifted the course of music history.

In 1940, he returned to Kansas City to perform with Jay McShann and to attend the funeral of his father, Charles Sr. He played Fairyland Park in the summer with McShann's band at 75th and Prospect for all-white audiences. The up-side of the summer was his introduction to Dizzy Gillespie by Step Buddy Anderson near 19th and Vine in the summer of 1940. After the summer season at Fairyland, Parker left with McShann's band for gigs in the region. On a trip to Omaha he earned his nickname from McShann and the band after an incident with a chicken and the tour bus.

In 1942 Parker left McShann's band and played for one year with Earl Hines, whose band included Dizzy Gillespie, who later played with Parker as a duo. This period is virtually undocumented, due to the strike of 1942–1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, during which time few professional recordings were made. Parker joined a group of young musicians, and played in after-hours clubs in Harlem, such as Clark Monroe's Uptown House. These young iconoclasts included Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Charlie Christian, and drummer Kenny Clarke. According to Mary Lou Williams, the group was formed in order "to challenge the practice of downtown musicians coming uptown and 'stealing' the music." She recalled: "Monk and some of the cleverest of the young musicians used to complain: 'We'll never get credit for what we're doing.' They had reason to say it... In the music business the going is tough for original talent. Everybody is being exploited through paid-for publicity and most anybody can become a great name if he can afford enough of it. In the end the public believes what it reads. So it is often difficult for the real talent to break through... Anyway, Monk said: 'We're going to get a big band started. We're going to create something they can't steal, because they can't play it.'"

Bebop

One night in 1939, Parker was playing "Cherokee" in a practice session with guitarist William "Biddy" Fleet when he hit upon a method for developing his solos that enabled one of his main musical innovations. He realized that the 12 semitones of the chromatic scale can lead melodically to any key, breaking some of the confines of simpler jazz soloing. He recalled: "I was jamming in a chili house on Seventh Avenue between 139th and 140th. It was December 1939. Now I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it ... Well, that night I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive."

Early in its development, this new type of jazz was rejected by many of the established, traditional jazz musicians who disdained their younger counterparts. The beboppers responded by calling these traditionalists "moldy figs". However, some musicians, such as Coleman Hawkins and Tatum, were more positive about its development, and participated in jam sessions and recording dates in the new approach with its adherents.

Because of the two-year Musicians' Union ban of all commercial recordings from 1942 to 1944, much of bebop's early development was not captured for posterity. As a result, it gained limited radio exposure. Bebop musicians had a difficult time gaining widespread recognition. It was not until 1945, when the recording ban was lifted, that Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell and others had a substantial effect on the jazz world. (One of their first small-group performances together was rediscovered and issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945.) Bebop soon gained wider appeal among musicians and fans alike.

On November 26, 1945, Parker led a record date for the Savoy label, marketed as the "greatest Jazz session ever". Recording as Charlie Parker's Reboppers, Parker enlisted such sidemen as Gillespie and Miles Davis on trumpet, Curley Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. The tracks recorded during this session include "Ko-Ko", "Billie's Bounce", and "Now's the Time".

In December 1945, the Parker band traveled to an unsuccessful engagement at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles. Most of the group returned to New York, but Parker remained in California, cashing in his return ticket to buy heroin. He experienced great hardship in California, and was briefly jailed after setting the bed sheets of his Los Angeles hotel room on fire and then running naked through the lobby while intoxicated, after which he was committed to the Camarillo State Mental Hospital for six months.

When Parker received his discharge from the hospital, he was clean and healthy. Before leaving California, he recorded "Relaxin' at Camarillo" in reference to his stay in the mental hospital. However, when he returned to New York he resumed his heroin usage. During this time he still managed to record dozens of sides for the Savoy and Dial labels, which remain some of the high points of his recorded output. Many of these were with his so-called "classic quintet" including Davis and Roach.

In 1952, Parker and Gillespie released an album entitled Bird and Diz.

Charlie Parker with Strings
A longstanding desire of Parker's was to perform with a string section. He was a keen student of classical music, and contemporaries reported he was most interested in the music and formal innovations of Igor Stravinsky and longed to engage in a project akin to what later became known as Third Stream, a new kind of music, incorporating both jazz and classical elements as opposed to merely incorporating a string section into performance of jazz standards. On November 30, 1949, Norman Granz arranged for Parker to record an album of ballads with a mixed group of jazz and chamber orchestra musicians. Six master takes from this session became the album Charlie Parker with Strings: "Just Friends", "Everything Happens to Me", "April in Paris", "Summertime", "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", and "If I Should Lose You".

Jazz at Massey Hall
In 1953, Parker performed at Massey Hall in Toronto, joined by Gillespie, Mingus, Powell and Roach. Unfortunately, the concert happened at the same time as a televised heavyweight boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott, so the musical event was poorly attended. Mingus recorded the concert, resulting in the album Jazz at Massey Hall. At this concert, Parker played a plastic Grafton saxophone.

Death

Parker died on March 12, 1955, in the suite of his friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City, while watching The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show on television. The official causes of death were lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis and had suffered a heart attack. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.

Since 1950, Parker had been living in New York City with his common-law wife, Chan Berg, the mother of his son Baird (who lived until 2014) and his daughter Pree (who died at age 3). He considered Chan his wife, although he never married her, nor did he divorce his previous wife, Doris, whom he had married in 1948. His marital status complicated the settling of Parker's estate and would ultimately serve to frustrate his wish to be quietly interred in New York City.

Dizzy Gillespie paid for the funeral arrangements and organized a lying-in-state, a Harlem procession officiated by Congressman and Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., as well as a memorial concert. Parker's body was flown back to Missouri, in accordance with his mother's wishes. Berg criticized Doris and Parker's family for giving him a Christian funeral, even though they knew he was a confirmed atheist. Parker was buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Missouri, in a hamlet known as Blue Summit, located close to I-435 and East Truman Road.

Parker's estate is managed by Jampol Artist Management.

Some amount of controversy continued after Parker's burial in the Kansas City area.  His tomb was engraved with the image of a tenor saxophone, though Parker is primarily associated with the alto saxophone.  Later, some people wanted to move Parker's remains to reinforce redevelopment of the historic 18th and Vine area.

Personal life
Parker's life was riddled with mental health problems and an addiction to heroin. Although unclear which came first, his addiction to opiates began at the age of 16, when he was injured in a car crash and a doctor prescribed morphine for the pain. The addiction that stemmed from this incident led him to miss performances, and to be considered unreliable. In the jazz scene heroin use was prevalent, and the substance could be acquired with little difficulty.

Although he produced many brilliant recordings during this period, Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic. Heroin was difficult to obtain once he moved to California, where the drug was less abundant, so he used alcohol as a substitute. A recording for the Dial label from July 29, 1946, provides evidence of his condition. Before this session, Parker drank a quart of whiskey. According to the liner notes of Charlie Parker on Dial Volume 1, Parker missed most of the first two bars of his first chorus on the track "Max Making Wax". When he finally did come in, he swayed wildly and once spun all the way around, away from his microphone. On the next tune, "Lover Man", producer Ross Russell physically supported Parker. On "Bebop" (the final track Parker recorded that evening) he begins a solo with a solid first eight bars; on his second eight bars, however, he begins to struggle, and a desperate Howard McGhee, the trumpeter on this session, shouts, "Blow!" at him. Charles Mingus considered this version of "Lover Man" to be among Parker's greatest recordings, despite its flaws. Nevertheless, Parker hated the recording and never forgave Ross Russell for releasing it. He re-recorded the tune in 1951 for Verve.

Parker's life took a turn for the worse in March 1954 when his three-year-old daughter Pree died of cystic fibrosis and pneumonia. He attempted suicide twice in 1954, which once again landed him in a mental hospital.

Artistry
Parker's style of composition involved interpolation of original melodies over existing jazz forms and standards, a practice known as contrafact and still common in jazz today. Examples include "Ornithology" (which borrows the chord progression of jazz standard "How High the Moon" and is said to be co-written with trumpet player Little Benny Harris), and "Moose The Mooche" (one of many Parker compositions based on the chord progression of "I Got Rhythm").  The practice was not uncommon prior to bebop, but it became a signature of the movement as artists began to move away from arranging popular standards and toward composing their own material. Perhaps Parker's most well-known contrafact is "Koko," which is based on the chord changes of the popular bebop tune "Cherokee," written by Ray Noble.

While tunes such as "Now's The Time", "Billie's Bounce", "Au Privave", "Barbados", "Relaxin' at Camarillo", "Bloomdido", and "Cool Blues" were based on conventional 12-bar blues changes, Parker also created a unique version of the 12-bar blues for tunes such as "Blues for Alice", "Laird Baird", and "Si Si." These unique chords are known popularly as "Bird Changes". Like his solos, some of his compositions are characterized by long, complex melodic lines and a minimum of repetition, although he did employ the use of repetition in some tunes, most notably "Now's The Time".

Parker contributed greatly to the modern jazz solo, one in which triplets and pick-up notes were used in unorthodox ways to lead into chord tones, affording the soloist more freedom to use passing tones, which soloists previously avoided. Parker was admired for his unique style of phrasing and innovative use of rhythm. Through his recordings and the popularity of the posthumously published Charlie Parker Omnibook, Parker's identifiable style dominated jazz for many years to come.

Other well-known Parker compositions include "Ah-Leu-Cha", "Anthropology", co-written with Gillespie, "Confirmation", "Constellation", "Moose the Mooche", "Scrapple from the Apple" and "Yardbird Suite", the vocal version of which is called "What Price Love", with lyrics by Parker.

Miles Davis once said, "You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker".

Discography

Recognition

Awards

Grammy Award

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Charlie Parker were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance".

Inductions

Government honors
In 1995, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent commemorative postage stamp in Parker's honor.

In 2002, the Library of Congress honored his recording "Ko-Ko" (1945) by adding it to the National Recording Registry.

Charlie Parker residence

From 1950 to 1954, Parker lived with Chan Berg on the ground floor of the townhouse at 151 Avenue B, across from Tompkins Square Park on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The Gothic Revival building, which was built about 1849, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and was designated a New York City landmark in 1999. Avenue B between East 7th and East 10th Streets was given the honorary designation "Charlie Parker Place" in 1992.

Musical tributes
 Jack Kerouac's spoken poem "Charlie Parker" to backing piano by Steve Allen on Poetry for the Beat Generation (1959)
 In 2014, saxophonist and bandleader Aaron Johnson produced historically accurate recreations of the Charlie Parker with Strings albums.
 Lennie Tristano's overdubbed solo piano piece "Requiem" was recorded in tribute to Parker shortly after his death.
 American composer Moondog wrote his famous "Bird's Lament" in his memory; published on the 1969 album Moondog.
 Since 1972, the Californian ensemble Supersax harmonized many of Parker's improvisations for a five-piece saxophone section.
 In 1973, guitarist Joe Pass released his album I Remember Charlie Parker in Parker's honor.
 Weather Report's jazz fusion track and highly acclaimed big band standard "Birdland", from the Heavy Weather album (1977), was a dedication by bandleader Joe Zawinul to both Charlie Parker and the New York 52nd Street club itself.
 The biographical song "Parker's Band" was recorded by Steely Dan on its 1974 album Pretzel Logic.
 Avant-garde jazz trombonist George E. Lewis recorded Homage to Charles Parker (1979).
 The opera Charlie Parker's Yardbird by Daniel Schnyder, libretto by Bridgette A. Wimberly, was premiered by Opera Philadelphia on June 5, 2015, with Lawrence Brownlee in the title role.
 The name of British 1960s blues-rock band The Yardbirds was at least partially inspired by Parker's nickname.
 Charles Mingus' song "Reincarnation of a Lovebird"
 In 1993, Anthony Braxton recorded a 2-CD album titled Charlie Parker Project, released in 1995. This material was re-released in 2018 as part of an 11-CD set titled Sextet (Parker) 1993.

Other tributes
 In 1949, the New York night club Birdland was named in his honor. Three years later, George Shearing wrote "Lullaby of Birdland", named for both Parker and the nightclub.
 The 1957 short story "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin features a jazz/blues playing virtuoso who names Bird as the "greatest" jazz musician, whose style he hopes to emulate.
 In 1959, Jack Kerouac completed his only full-length poetry work, Mexico City Blues, with two poems about Parker's  importance, writing in those works that Parker's contribution to music was comparable to Ludwig van Beethoven's.
 The 1959 Beat comedy album How to Speak Hip,  by comedians Del Close and John Brent, lists the three top most "uncool" actions (both in the audio and in the liner notes) as follows: "It is uncool to claim that you used to room with Bird. It is uncool to claim that you have Bird's axe. It is even less cool to ask 'Who is Bird?'"
 A memorial to Parker was dedicated in 1999 in Kansas City at 17th Terrace and The Paseo, near the American Jazz Museum located at 18th and Vine, featuring a  tall bronze head sculpted by Robert Graham.
 The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival is a free two-day music festival that takes place every summer on the last weekend of August in Manhattan, New York City, at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and Tompkins Square Park in the Lower East Side, sponsored by the non-profit organization City Parks Foundation.
 The Annual Charlie Parker Celebration is an annual festival held in Kansas City, Kansas since 2014. It is held for 10 days and celebrates all aspects of Parker, from live jazz music and bootcamps, to tours of his haunts in the city, to exhibits at the American Jazz Museum.
 In the short-story collection Las armas secretas (The Secret Weapons), Julio Cortázar dedicated "El perseguidor" ("The Pursuer") to Charlie Parker. This story examines the last days of a drug-addicted saxophonist through the eyes of his biographer.
 In 1981, jazz historian Phil Schaap began to host Bird Flight, a radio show on WKCR New York dedicated entirely to Parker's music. The program continues to be broadcast on WKCR in 2022.
 In 1984, modern dance choreographer Alvin Ailey created the piece For Bird – With Love in honor of Parker. The piece chronicles his life from his early career to his failing health.
 A biographical film called Bird, starring Forest Whitaker as Parker and directed by Clint Eastwood, was released in 1988.
 In 1999 the Spanish metal band Saratoga created the song Charlie se Fue in honor of Charlie Parker, for the album Vientos de Guerra.
 In 2005, the Selmer Paris saxophone manufacturer commissioned a special "Tribute to Bird" alto saxophone, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Parker's death (1955–2005).
 Parker's performances of "I Remember You" (recorded for Clef Records in 1953, with the Charlie Parker Quartet, comprising Parker on alto sax, Al Haig on piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Max Roach on drums) and "Parker's Mood" (recorded for the Savoy label in 1948, with the Charlie Parker All Stars, comprising Parker on alto sax, Miles Davis on trumpet, John Lewis on piano, Curley Russell on bass, and Max Roach on drums) were selected by literary critic Harold Bloom for inclusion on his shortlist of the "twentieth-century American Sublime", the greatest works of American art produced in the 20th century. A vocalese version of "Parker's Mood" was a popular success for King Pleasure.
 Jean-Michel Basquiat created many paintings to honor Charlie Parker, including Charles the First, CPRKR, Bird on Money, Bird of Paradise, and Discography I.
 Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, wrote a children's book entitled Ode to a High Flying Bird as a tribute to Parker. Watts has cited Parker as a large influence on his life when he was a boy learning jazz.
 The 2014 film Whiplash repeatedly refers to the 1937 incident at the Reno Club, changing the aim point of the cymbals to his head and pointing to it as evidence that genius is not born but made by relentless practice and pitiless peers.

Citations

References

Bibliography

Further reading
 Aebersold, Jamey, editor (1978). Charlie Parker Omnibook. New York: Michael H. Goldsen.
 Koch, Lawrence (1999). Yardbird Suite: A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker. Boston, Northeastern University Press. 
 Parker, Chan (1999). My Life In E-Flat. University Of South Carolina Press. 
 Woideck, Carl, editor (1998). The Charlie Parker Companion: Six Decades of Commentary. New York: Schirmer Books. 
 Yamaguchi, Masaya, editor (1955). Yardbird Originals. New York: Charles Colin, reprinted 2005.

External links

 The Official Site of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker
 Charlie Parker discography at Discogs
 Charlie Parker discography
 Charlie Parker Sessionography
 Clips and notes about Parker
 Bird Lives – Thinking About Charlie Parker
 

 
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Heroin is classified as an opioid drug produced from the opium poppy. The illicit use of heroin in Australia emerged during the 1960s throughout the Vietnam War. Its origins have been linked to American troops stationed in major cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, who introduced the drug to the red-light districts whilst on their recreational leave.

Since then, the use of heroin amongst the general Australian population has fluctuated, with reports of a shortage occurring at the turn of the century. It is now believed to be the fourth most common principle drug of concern in Australia, with reports noting a decline in the use of the drug since the early 2000s.

Currently, the illegal use of heroin in Australia is low, despite the market being highly stable.

Trends in usage 
The use of heroin in Australia saw a sharp increase during the 1990s, which is now known as the Australian heroin epidemic. This epidemic was accompanied by a surge of new heroin users, specifically in NSW and Victoria, as well as a rise in its purity, which was easily accessible. However, this changed at the start of 2001, when Australia saw a rapid decline in the availability of heroin. This is commonly referred to as the 'heroin drought' or 'shortage'. This is reconfirmed against statistics that show a sharp drop in heroin users who reported the illicit substance as their 'first drug of choice' throughout this period.

This heroin shortage was confirmed by the National Alcohol and Drug Research Centre, with key informants reporting that in comparison to the 15 minutes it took to locate heroin prior to December 2000, it took up to 4 hours in January 2001. The causes of the heroin shortage have been disputed; however, the general consensus is that it was the result of three main factors: the increase in heroin seizures by law enforcement throughout late 1990s, the arrest of several key figures in the heroin markets, and the severe droughts that were affecting the opium poppy regions in Myanmar.

Since 2002, the heroin market has seen an upturn, with the supply and use of the illicit drug increasing. , the heroin market is considered 'highly stable', despite the low percentage of the general population recorded actually consuming heroin. There has been a 25% drop in recent heroin use in Australia, from 79% in 2000, to 54% in 2018.

Supply and distribution 
From its expansion during the Vietnam war to the 1990s, heroin importation was majorly controlled by various organised 'white' crime groups throughout Australia. The heroin market and its drug trafficking groups were able to flourish during this time due to the prevailing police corruption, especially in NSW. However, the heroin market was gradually overtaken during the 1990s by South East Asian syndicate groups. Australia's heroin predominately originates from the Golden Triangle, specifically Myanmar, although there have been seizures of South American heroin too.

Historically, Sydney has been the largest point of distribution for imported heroin; in particular, the suburbs of Kings Cross, Redfern and Cabramatta became hotspots for large open-air markets. However, throughout the drought, the expected patterns of heroin distribution changed. The market became more discreet, and there was a shift to deal more available drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. This is also confirmed by a sharp drop in the number of arrests for heroin street dealers, which halved in 2001.

During the height of Australia's epidemic, users were buying relatively cheap but pure heroin. From 1996 to 2000, the amount for a gram halved from $400 to $220 and the amount for a 'cap' was $25. This changed however at the turn of the century, with a gram of heroin selling for $450 during the drought and 'caps' were selling double what they were previously. However, the price of a 'cap' has stabilised at this price, over the past decade, with no reports of increases since 2000.

Route of administration 
In Australia, the injection has been the predominant route of administration, unlike Europe, where smoking heroin is more prevalent. This is due to the type of heroin that is available in Australia's markets, which lends itself to injecting rather than smoking. Throughout the drought, as the supply of heroin decreased, so did the level of injecting. This decrease in injecting also saw a reduction in the amount of infections associated with needles, such as hepatitis C. Since the end of the shortage, smoking heroin is on the rise in Australia, in particular, the method of 'chasing'.

However, injecting heroin maintains the most popular route of administration in Australia, with the National Drug and Alcohol Centre reporting 100% of reported heroin users injecting in 2018, compared to the 6% who smoke. It is common for heroin users in Australia to transition to smoking to injecting heroin throughout their heroin careers.

Fatalities and health risks 

Heroin-induced deaths in the Australian population are significantly less than when compared to Asia, Europe and North America. However, of the nearly 2000 drug-related deaths in Australia in 2016, 20% of these were caused by heroin. The rate of mortality amongst the Australian population who use heroin has fluctuated over time, however, opioids, both illicit (heroin) and licit, have remained the substance most prominently found in drug-related fatalities.

From the 1960s onwards, the toll of heroin-induced deaths in Australia kept rising until it peaked during the 1990s heroin epidemic, gaining widespread attention from both the Australian public and media, At the start of 2001, there was a 40% drop in heroin overdoses across the nation within the space of four weeks. This dramatic reduction is often used to confirm the shortage of heroin. Since the drought, the rate of mortality has not returned to its height from the late 1990s, but has risen again recently, as well as a 25% increase in hospitalisations for opioid poisoning, which is thought to be the result of the aging population of users from the 1990s developing medical conditions from sustained drug use. Mortality rates in Australia differ based on the age cohort. From 2001 onwards, there has been larger increases of heroin overdoses amongst those within the 35-44 and 45-54 year age brackets, but these rates have noticeably declined amongst those who are 15–24 years old. The rate of heroin deaths for male heroin users are much higher than for females, and have been since 2001, with the rate of deaths for males in 2012 4.6 times higher than female users.

The leading cause of death amongst Australian heroin users is accidental overdose, with a rate of 30-45%. Of the near 9,000 opioid deaths that occurred in Australia from 2001 to 2012, one-third of these were due to accidental overdose. However, these numbers may be far lower than what is accurate, due to the high metabolism rate of heroin, meaning toxicology reports may not always depict levels of the illicit substance. The Australian Treatment Outcome Study (ATOS), found that the cohort they interviewed who were regular heroin users, were four and a half times more likely to die than the expected general population rate. Fatalities resulting from medical conditions attributed to long term drug use is the second highest way heroin users in Australia die, accounting for 20-35% of total fatality rates. As opioids are the drug most commonly injected in Australia, heroin users are prone to diseases, such as blood-borne viruses, like Hepatitis C and HIV, due to unhygienic practices of sharing needles. Australian heroin users who are seeking treatment, or are registered at methadone maintenance programs, were four times less likely to die than those who weren't. Enrolment in medically supervised injecting centres reduces the risk of overdose by nearly 75%.

Characteristics 
There has been limited and reliable research done into the characteristic of typical Australian heroin users. However, studies do show that in Australia, the illicit use of heroin is predominantly done by men, with two male heroin users for every one female user. The cohort of Australian female heroin users also typically are a lot younger than the Australian male users, and female users are more often in a heterosexual relationship with a partner who also injects illicit substances. There is a wide age range of heroin users in Australia, with a heroin user expected to fall between the late teens to the late forties, with the average age approximated to be 30 years old. The physical health of heroin users in Australia is poor due to the prominence of infectious blood-borne diseases spread through needle-sharing amongst heroin users.

Data has also shown that the heroin shortage of 2001 has also changed who in Australia is using heroin, with a decline in younger first-time heroin users injecting the drug, which is consistent with studies that show that the use of heroin amongst the general population is low and has plateaued since 2001. Despite this, heroin users in Australia are more likely to fail in their attempts to quit abusing the substance than any other illicit drug.

The employment status for heroin users is significantly low, confirmed by the findings that the majority of fatalities who died of heroin-related causes were unemployed. Indigenous Australians are considered an "at risk" cohort, with research undertaken by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare revealing that 11% of clients in treatment services were Indigenous Australians.

Shooting galleries 
'Shooting galleries' are illegal and covert spots near popular drug markets where injecting drug users, predominantly those using heroin, go to consume illicit substances. Described as 'businesses', these galleries are found operating with budget hotels, often linked with the sex industry. Rooms are rented out to heroin users for a fee, with extra benefits including, but not limited to, 24-hour use or an ambulance being called in the case of an overdose. These galleries were particularly prominent in Sydney, associated with its 'red light district' Kings Cross during the 1990s. There is some evidence that supports the assertion that corrupt police officers were knowingly ignoring these places, which allowed them to develop. There were at least 10 shooting galleries known to be operating during the peak of the heroin epidemic, in 1994, and they were highly popular for heroin users until 1995, when a majority of them were closed down after a Royal Commission into police corruption.

Supervised Injecting Rooms 
Supervised injecting rooms, also known as Medically Supervised Injecting Centres (MSIC's) or safe injecting facilities (SIF's), are legal areas set up to provide drug-takers a safe environment to inject in, under the supervision of trained medical personal. The first official legal recommendation for a Medical Supervised Injecting Centre in Australia originated from the 1997 Wood Royal Commission into NSW's police corruption; however, the trial for one was denied the following year. A second campaign for a Sydney-based MSIC occurred after the Sun Herald, a Sydney-based newspaper, ran a story that featured a photo of a young teenager injecting heroin on its front page. After he was re-elected, Premier of NSW Bob Carr, summoned a drug summit which took place in 1999. The summit approved of a trial MSIC in Kings Cross for 18 months, which opened in May 2001. The MSIC was the first supervised injecting room outside of Europe, and it received public backlash from Australia's own Prime Minister at the time John Howard, as well as the Vatican. In 2010, the status of the Sydney MSIC was promoted from trial to a permanent health service. Heroin was the most predominant drug injected on site from 2001 to 2007, but more than half the overdoses that occurred from 2014 to 2017 were heroin-induced.

Until 2018, the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre was the only of its kind in Australia. Despite attempts by various organisations to propose an SIF in Melbourne, the Victorian State Government throughout the 2000s refused to support a trial. In 2017, in response to a woman overdosing in a fast-food chain in Melbourne's suburb of North Richmond the previous year, a trial for a supervised injecting room was suggested. The centre launched in July 2018, and received 20,000 visits after the first 4 months. The trial is running for 2 years; however, due to the demand for the centre, a new, larger facility is currently being built.

References 

Drugs in Australia
Heroin Marks Donald Ripka (12 June 1903 – 4 March 1976) was a British-Polish doctor and politician.

Born part of Poland then under the control of the Russian Empire to a Jewish family as Majer Rybka, he moved with his family to the Spitalfields area of London at an early age.  In 1931, he was naturalised as a British citizen, by which time he was using the name "Marks Ripka".

Ripka studied medicine, qualifying in 1933, and became known for his willingness to prescribe heroin to addicts.  Initially, this attracted attention, but did not cause him difficulties, and he became active in the Socialist Medical Association and the Medical Services Guild.  He also joined the Labour Party, and at the 1946 London County Council election, he was elected in St Pancras South West, serving a single three-year term.

By 1951, concerns about Ripka's prescription of heroin were taken to the Home Office.  While it decided that the prescription of heroin to addicts was a complex area, of unclear legality, one of Ripka's patients had sent their prescribed heroin to a friend in Malta.  Ripka pled guilty to aiding the unlawful possession of a proscribed substance, and agreed not to accept any more addicts as patients.

References

1903 births
1976 deaths
20th-century British medical doctors
Labour Party (UK) councillors
Members of London County Council
Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom
Russian emigrants to the United Kingdom