A Brief History of Heroin

I am a Heroin addict. I have been for the majority of the last six years.

Heroin is an acetylated form of morphine. Its common chemical name is diacetylmorphine. In most countries, it is classified as one of the most dangerous substances known and holds no medicinal value. In the United States, it was placed in Schedule I standing of the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. It shares this designation with other substances such as LSD and MDMA (Ecstasy). Because Herion is essentially a stronger version of morphine, much of Europe uses it as a potent pain reliever in terminal patients. It is approximately twice as potent, by weight, than its morphine counterpart. However, due to it's altered chemical structure, it is approximately eight times stronger than Morphine when administered intravenously. This fact, coupled with it's more rapid crossing of the blood-brain-barrier (BBB), makes it a drug that is much preferred to addicts.

In 1874, C.R. Alder Wright, an English chemist working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London unknowingly synthesized the first known batch of Heroin. He did so by boiling anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride over a stove for several hours. This produced the more powerful, acetylated form of morphine, now commonly known as diacetylmorphine. Wright's discovery did not lead to any further developments; at least not immediately.

It was independently re-synthesized twenty-three years later by another chemist, Felix Hoffman. Hoffman, who worked for Bayer Pharmaceutical at the time, was instructed by his supervisor to acetylate morphine with the objective of creating codeine, a natural derivative of the opium poppy which was similar to morphine but less potent and addictive. But, instead of producing codeine, the experiment produced diacetylmorphine which is twice as potent than morphine itself. A tidbit that one likely will find interesting is what happened next. Bayer would go on to name the substance Heroin, likely from the German word heroisch, because in field studies test subjects reported feeling heroic.

From 1898 until 1910, Heroin was marketed as a non-addictive substitute for morphine and as a cough suppressant for children. This was before it was realized that Heroin was simply a quicker acting form of Morphine; this was proven when it was discovered that the liver simply metabolized Heroin into morphine. This would go down as a historical blunder for Bayer.

During the prior decade, Heroin was available over-the-counter and there were no restrictions on the sale or distribution.

In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed and effectively controlled the sale and distribution of Heroin. The implication was that Heroin was to be dispensed as a prescription-only medication. As such, recreational Heroin users were still able to visit their physician and be legally supplied with Heroin. Heroin was still available until 1924. It was in 1924 that the government passed additional legislation banning the sale, manufacture or importation of Heroin into the United States.