The History of Heroin

In the mid to late 1800's America loved Opium.  A great national past-time was chasing the dragon in the classic Opium Den.  Bans started coming down on the opium dens at the end of the 1800's, near the turn of the century.  It was causing a problem and creating addicts, and we all know what happens when people need money for drugs.  From Opium, morphine was derived.  It was a more potent, synthesized drug that came from the Poppy Plant.  It was a potent pain killer and still is.  Of course, its prescribed now when you lose a limb, or you are dying of cancer as opposed to having really bad menstrual cramps, or a nasty croup.

From 1898 to 1910, Heroin was sold legally as a non-addictive cough medicine by Bayer.  Does that name sound familiar?  Yes, its the a company that sells aspirin today!  It was also sold as an alternative to morphine, which was then known to have addictive qualities.  In fact, at the turn of the century, there was a charitable organization sending out free samples of Heroin by mail so people could kick their Morphine addictions.  In 1903, some physicians began to argue that Heroin was just as bad as Morphine and was not a good "step-down" drug to kick a habit, but for some physicians, this treatment was all the rave!  Clearly, they made a big mistake! 

In 1905, Opium was officially banned in The United States.  In 1906, The Pure Food and Drugs Act prevented product deception so "Cure-All Snake Oil Vendors" were no more.  A company was responsible for being truthful about what was in their product.  You couldn't say a product was non-habit forming if you had prior knowledge that it was.  In 1906, Heroin was approved as a general medication to be prescribed for pain in place of Morphine.  It was discovered rather quickly that Heroin was quite addictive.

The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed in 1914 to regulate and control the sale and distribution of Heroin as well as other related drugs derived from Opium.  It was then only allowed to be sold by prescription.  In 1923, Heroin addicts began scoring the streets for illegal Heroin to feed their growing habits.  In just ten years, in 1924, Heroin was banned and labeled a Schedule I illegal narcotic.  Its never been legalized again since 1924 in The United States of America!  

Diacetylmorphine, which is Heroin's chemical formula name was first synthesized in 1874 by C.R. Alder Wright, a Chemist form the UK.  He was trying to create a more potent morphine derivative.  Being unsuccessful, Wright had given up, but Felix Hoffman picked up where he left off about twenty years later and became another brilliant scientist who discovered Heroin while trying to synthesize and create what we now call Codeine.  Heinrich Dreser, a scientist who worked for Bayer Company in Germany realized that diluting Morphine with acetyls produced what we now refer to as "Heroin".  Its side effects were thought to be much less "severe" than Morphine.

During the 1930's, and during WWII, it became nearly impossible to import Heroin into The United States, due to increased security measures at the nation's borders.  Heroin then began to be cut and not be as potent.  In the late 1940's, organized crime got their hands on the Heroin drug market and began to widely distribute the substance again.  The problem was huge by the 1960's when the government again began to crack down on the drug.  This was the first noticeably huge epidemic, in the 1960's.  This continued into the 1970's.  There was another surge in the 1990's, and the problem remains nearly unsolvable today.