8 Things Movies Always Get Wrong About Drugs

4. Adrenalin Combats Heroin

Sticking with our Pulp Fiction theme, please, for the love of god, don't go slamming a dose of adrenaline into your friend's chest cavity, even if they have just accidentally overdosed on Heroin.

An adrenaline, or epinephrine, shot will usually be administered in the case of cardiac arrest, allergic reactions and many other medical conditions. It works by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system, and kickstarting the heart. This is all kosher so far, but unfortunately, a heroin doesn't cause cardiac arrest, it causes respiratory depression, causing the person's breathing rate to gradually slow and eventually stop altogether.

Adrenaline could be administered at the point of total respiratory failure, because it would eventually bring about cardiac arrest, but its effects would probably wear off before the Heroin does, leaving you back at square one. Rather than adrenaline, Travolta could have administered Naloxone (carefully and intravenously, of course), which would have immediately counteracted the effects of the Heroin.