The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that about a quarter of those who try heroin once become addicts and become more likely to die from an overdose.
During the next three and a half hours, the heroin Violetta battles against tuberculosis whilst managing to win, break up with and then win back her lover Alfredo.
Unable to deal with the demands that fame brought him, in 1988 at the age of just 27 Jean-Michel Basquiat, the most successful black artist in history — died from a heroin overdose.