Tips for safer injecting

Slamming is dangerous, for all kinds of reasons – some are less obvious than others. If you haven’t started slamming – don’t. It can lead to a huge list of long-term physical and mental health problems and can make it extremely hard to get clean.

For the sake of your health and to lower the risk of addiction, switch to a non-injectable form of the drug if you can. But if you’re going to slam, here’s what you need to know.

This guide covers:

The basics (this page)
Equipment and sharing
Preparing to inject: setup, mixing up and torniquets
The injecting process: techniques, flushing and clean-up

The basics

Learn the difference between a vein and an artery – injecting into an artery can kill. Arteries are deeper and harder to find than veins, but they sit very close together.

Arteries and veins

If you hit an artery, the blood will be brighter and will spurt rather than ooze.
It’ll be harder and more painful to inject your drugs, and the plunger will probably be forced back. It may contain frothy blood.
It you think you’ve hit an artery, pull out straight away and apply firm pressure to the injection site.
If the bleeding continues for more than five minutes, seek medical help at A&E, an NHS Walk-in Centre or a GP surgery. If you’re losing blood fast, call 999.

Use a new needle if you fail to find a vein straight away. To reduce the risk of collapsed veins avoid injecting into the same area.

Avoid injecting into veins in your hand – they’re too small to handle it and could collapse.

Collapsed veins may never recover. Injecting below the waist can cause serious circulation problems if a vein is damaged. Never inject into a site that’s sore or swollen as this area may be infected or the vein may be blocked.

Get to a doctor if an injection site is swollen for more than a few days, if it’s red, hot or tender or if there’s any serious bleeding, the skin changes colour, is sore or weeps.

Next: Equipment and sharing ››

Published: 30/08/2018
Next review: 30/08/2021