Review of Heroin Addiction by Jerome J. Platt

The idea that 1.52mg per liter of morphine in blood indicates that Cobain was given three times the lethal dose of heroin comes from the book Heroin Addiction by Jerome J. Platt. It is claimed that the author wrote in the book that the maximum lethal dose of heroin is 75mg for a 150 pound man which would result in 0.5mg per liter of morphine in blood.

I was curious to know what all these people who quote this idea have learned from the book. These people include Tom Grant, Dr. Cyril Wecht, Max Wallace and Ian Halperin. I bought a physical copy of the book. It was imported from US. 

Front of the book.

Just to clarify that I got the right book, here is the author's name.

The one I have is the second edition which was published in 1986. This is the edition mentioned by Max Wallace and Ian Halperin in their books Who Killed Kurt Cobain? and Love and Death.

I finished reading the book recently and nowhere did I find the book quote that 75mg of heroin is the maximum lethal dose. It did not mention anything about 0.5mg per liter of morphine would be found in blood when a 150 pound man takes the maximum lethal dose of heroin (75mg). Either the authors referred to the wrong book or they took misinformation from another person.

Just in case anyone has a doubt that I got the right book below are images where the authors claimed the book had the quote.

This is from chapter 8: Tom Grant, P.I. of the book Who Killed Kurt Cobain?

This is from chapter 4 of the book Love and Death.

[NOTE - .5mg is the same as 0.5mg.]

The book itself is good to read if you are interested to learn the history of heroin addiction, the problems heroin addiction brings and how heroin addicts are treated. However, I don't think this book is good to refer to for criminal investigations and cases. This book is more about social welfare by treating heroin addicts so that they can lead better lives, find employment and be good citizens. It mainly discusses various studies done on treatment of addicts and how effective they were, what kind of drugs can help deal with heroin addictions (the author seems to favour methadone though other drugs were mentioned as well), the study of the personality of heroin addicts, study on how the addicts became addicted to heroin and trying to make people understand how the addicts feel so that they can learn how to help them and more. In my opinion, I think people who are police officers, doctors who treat heroin addicts and social workers should be reading this book. It will help them in their career since each of them may face an addict (police officers will have to arrest them, social workers may have to counsel them, etc.). However, this book is old and possibly outdated. Perhaps this book may not be useful today but it may still be a good read.

Regarding the Cobain Case... I have already mentioned several times that 1.52mg per liter of morphine in blood does not indicate that Cobain was given a lethal dose. You need to consider the half-life of heroin and its metabolites and how heroin and its metabolites are eliminated from the body. I suggest you to read the blog post The Toxicology Report. It may be confusing at first. Take your time to understand it. Also, I found one source that claims the minimum lethal dose of heroin is 200mg.

Now back to the book and the quote.

I did try to find the quote that claims that the maximum lethal dose is 75mg for heroin and that taking the lethal dose would result in 0.5mg/L of morphine in blood in the book. The book didn't mention the quote. I also tried finding it from Google Books and there too I didn't find the quote. Google Books is a website that allows you to read and find texts of a book. You can use it as well. I tried to find the quote in the first edition of the book using Google Books but it was not there either. 

All I can say is that if any of them had read the book (Heroin Addiction by Jerome J. Platt) then they would not refer it to be the source of that quote. I doubt they have read the book. It may be possible they referred to the wrong book or maybe they were misinformed by another person. Regardless, 0.5mg/L of morphine in blood does not prove that Cobain or anyone else for the matter, took a lethal dose. Still, I will reread the book later and search for the quote.

-Indya