History of Heroin & Opioids

I am definitely a history buff.

The only problem is that, though I am fantastic at reading about history, I am poor at retaining information. So, sometimes I have to read something two or three different times before it sticks in my long-term memory bank.

One thing that helps me retain information is being precise about what I try to research. If I am passionate about something I am more apt to retain that information better.

So that leads me to this: I am passionate about addiction and recovery, and started researching the history of heroin and treatments for it. It is actually a very interesting topic, as opioid addiction has been plaguing civilizations for thousands of years.

We all know about the opioid epidemic the United States is facing today. You may also know a bit about heroin addiction in the 1960’s and 70’s when its use was prevalent amongst Vietnam war veterans and famous musicians.

It goes back a lot further, however. So here are some things you may not know about heroin/opiate addiction.

It all started thousands of years ago when Opium was derived from Poppy seeds that were grown in the middle east. The first documentation of widespread Opium use was by the Mesopotamians and Sumerians around 3400 B.C. (The Recovery Village).

It soon became prevalent in many other cultures and spread to places like Egypt, Greece, India, and eventually China, which was the catalyst for the Opium Wars of the 1800’s. It was used both medicinally and recreationally and could be ingested as tablets or smoked. The Opium Wars were waged by the British starting in 1839 when the Qing Dynasty tried to stop the British from controlling the Opium market in China.

In 1803, German pharmacist Friedrich Serturner invented Morphine when he isolated and extracted one of Opium’s active ingredients. He named it after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.

According to historians, opiate addiction didn’t become a true American problem until after the Civil War ended. The hypodermic syringe was invented in 1853, and countless soldiers in the war became addicted to Morphine to cure the physical and mental torture they went through. So many Civil War soldiers became hooked on Morphine that addiction was briefly referred to as “soldier’s disease” in the US.

It was also in the 1800’s when Opium dens started sprouting up in the US. Opium use was common in China and Chinese immigrants brought that habit overseas when they came to build railroads during the Gold Rush. Laudanum, which included a mixture of alcohol and opium, was also frequently prescribed to housewives for menstrual problems and became an issue around that same time.

Simply put, opiate addiction was a huge problem in the US as the 19th century ended. There was no solution until around 1895, when German pharmaceutical company Bayer (yes, the Bayer aspirin company) started marketing a “miracle drug.”

That miracle drug was Heroin (heroic). Though heroin, or Diamorphine, was technically invented in 1874 by English chemist C.R. Alder Wright, nothing came of it until Bayer found out how to make it and commercialize it in 1895.

Bayer thought they created a wonder drug and marketed it as an over-the-counter cough suppressant and cure to Morphine addiction. It quickly caught footing in the US and in 1900, the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal published an ad that said heroin “possesses many advantages over Morphine. It’s not hypnotic and there’s no danger of acquiring a habit.”

American doctors started giving it out to people addicted to Morphine and actually managed addiction symptoms similar to how Suboxone and Methadone are used now. But it was also used to treat women after giving birth, as a cough suppressant, and for diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia.

Heroin wasn’t a miracle drug after all, and by 1908 opiate use became such a problem that President Teddy Roosevelt appointed the nation’s first Opium Commissioner, Hamilton Wright. According to the Washington Post, Wright told Roosevelt that Americans “have become the greatest drug fiends in the world.”

It was shortly after that when the nation’s first drug laws came about. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 changed the game forever, and tightly regulated the sale and distribution of opium and cocaine-based products. This was a tough time for doctors, as they had to cut off patients from their treatments. Over the next decade, thousands of doctors were arrested, and heroin became fully illegal in 1924.

Though prohibition-era gangsters started selling heroin illegally, it went out of the mainstream when the Great Depression hit, and World War II halted international drug shipments. It didn’t make a comeback until the 1960’s and 70’s, when Vietnam war vets were exposed to it fighting overseas. It was mostly an “inner-city” drug then and was prominent amongst African American males.

Right around then, Methadone popped up in the US, most notably in New York City when Dr. Vincent Dole experimented with it to treat the growing heroin problem. Though Methadone was invented by the Germans in 1937 due to a wartime Morphine shortage, Dr. Dole is regarded as the first person to open up Methadone clinics, when he found out it showed promise treating heroin addiction.

Richard Nixon launched the notorious War on Drugs in 1971 and decided the best way to fight the drug problem was with tougher law enforcement and long prison sentences. The War on Drugs is looked at now as a massive failure, while treatment over incarceration has started becoming more common over the last decade or so.

In the 1990’s, heroin was mostly out of the mainstream until Purdue Pharma launched their manipulating campaign to hook as many people on Oxycontin as they could. That led to another heroin epidemic that is only growing by the year. Last year, almost 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, fueled by a pandemic that isolated substance users combined with an increase in drugs mixed with Fentanyl.

In summary, though this is the most widespread and deadly drug epidemic the US has ever faced, it is not the only epidemic. Drugs, including opiates, always has and always will be around. This is a disease that has been affecting Americans since the Civil War. In another 100 years, I am sure there will be new drugs invented and people will look back on our current epidemic to learn about how we handled it. I would like to be able to say that – more than any other time in history – we were the ones who finally realized that addiction isn’t a moral deficiency or criminal matter. I want to be able to say that we were the generation who opened up about our struggles and helped to eliminate the stigma of addiction.

We are not alone, and we shouldn’t be afraid to open up and reach out for help. We have better treatments than ever before and know that the best way to treat addiction is with connection. The opposite of addiction is connection, and there are like minded people who want to be part of your journey. Never be afraid to stand up and make a change.