Who invented bad drugs

Here we review the biggest news in politics, culture and science this year. This week, Senator Cory Booker introduced legislation to legalize marijuana nationwide. From the CIA allowing drug traffickers to flourish in exchange Drug overdoses, mostly from increasingly lethal opioids, now kill more people than guns and traffic accidents. A recent MK-Ultra was a top-secret CIA project in which the agency conducted hundreds of clandestine experiments—sometimes on unwitting U. Though Project LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a hallucinogenic drug that was first synthesized a Swiss scientist in the s.

Heroin, morphine, and other opiates trace their origins to a single plant—the opium poppy. Cultivation of the plant dates back to the earliest years of human civilization, and opium use was well known in ancient Mesopotamia.

The narcotic drug has been used both recreationally The US then imposed its anti-cannabis stance on other western countries and this was finally imposed on the rest of the world through the first UN convention on narcotic drugs in Black Americans were stigmatised on account of heroin use in the s. In the s hippies and psychedelics were targeted because they opposed the Vietnam war. In the s it was again inner-city black Americans who used crack cocaine who received the brunt of opprobrium, so much so that the penalties for crack possession were times higher than those for powder cocaine, despite almost equivalent pharmacology.

In the UK a hate campaign against young people behaving differently was instigated by the rightwing press. As with past campaigns, they hid their prejudice under the smokescreen of false health concerns. It was very effective and resulted in both MDMA and raves being banned. This occurred despite the police being largely comfortable with MDMA users since they were friendly — a stark contrast to those at alcohol-fuelled events.

Since the demise of ecstasy we have seen the rise and fall of several alternative legal highs, most notably mephedrone. This was banned following a relentless media campaign, despite no evidence of deaths and with little attempt to properly estimate its harm. It may be concluded that, regarding tolerance to heroin, certain individuals react peculiarly and it is recommended that in the case of old and feeble persons, the initial dose should not be over 0. Horatio C. Wood [ 13 ] Jr.

He warned that experimentation was still not adequate to warrant the conclusion that heroin was not addiction producing. Many other investigators recommended the use of heroin at the turn of the century.

Most of them failed to refer to the danger in its usage or implicitly stated that it did not lead to tolerance. In , Joseph Jacobi, basing himself on the use of heroin in 85 cases, claimed the drug as superior as a cough-soothing remedy.

Although he found its use more effective with patients who had never used strong narcotic drugs, he reported that any tendency towards tolerance could be averted if dosage was curtailed for several weeks. He also recommended that its use should be alternated with morphine or codeine. At about this time the enthusiasm for heroin started to wane.

His practice was criticized by Jarrige [ 16 ] in who claimed that physicians would thus make "heroinists" of their patients. Citing several cases of heroinism, he was emphatic in his contention that the withdrawal of heroin was much more painful than that of morphine. Rather than reducing the use of narcotics, the advocation of heroin was responsible for many persons becoming drug addicts.

In Pettey [ 17 ] reported that of the last cases he had treated for drug addiction, eight were heroin users and of these, three had first become addicts through the use of heroin. He further reported that the heroin habit was just as difficult to cure as the morphine habit. Sollier, [ 18 ] in , deplored the use of heroin in the treatment of morphinism.

This practice, he claimed, had resulted in the number of heroin addicts becoming as great as that of morphine addicts. Heroin was extremely toxic and the extent of poisoning in the heroinists he had seen, was much greater than it would have been for the same amount of morphine. Sollier found that the mental and physical deterioration from the use of heroin was very rapid.

He opposed its use in the treatment of both morphinism and respiratory diseases. In the same year Atwood [ 19 ] reported a case of heroinism in a woman who had become addicted to heroin after its use in surgery. Although not as vehement as Sollier and Jarrige, Atwood advised caution in prescribing the drug. Atwood believed cases of heroin addiction to be rare, but he pointed out that such cases would become more common if no discretion was used by the medical profession and he was against its prescription for coughs, recurring headaches, rheumatism and other chronic diseases.

At that time, however, there was no other drug that could fully replace heroin for some medical indications, and the medical profession was still in favour of it in spite of knowing many of its disadvantages.

Trawick [ 20 ] of Kentucky expressed it : "I feel that bringing charges against heroin is almost like questioning the fidelity of a good friend. I have used it with good results, and I have gotten some bad results, such as a peculiar bandlike feeling around the head, dizziness, etc.

It took a long time for the medical profession to realize the full danger of heroin addiction. On the other hand, very little time passed after the drug had become readily available before the underworld and smugglers discovered that heroin possessed properties even beyond those of other narcotics, which have since made it the main drug of addiction in many parts of the world.

The analgesic and euphoric properties of heroin are much greater per gram than those of morphine. Whereas morphine usually is administered by a hypodermic needle, heroin can be sniffed into the system.

However, persons addicted to heroin soon come to use it hypodermically and even intravenously. As the sensible effect wanes with increasing addiction, they try larger doses and more drastic methods of self-administration, always trying to recapture the stimulation of the drug.

The addiction-forming properties of heroin are more pronounced even than those of morphine. It produces a disregard for the conventions and morals of civilization and these symptoms progress more rapidly than with other habit- forming drugs. Heroin addiction is the most difficult to cure; sudden withdrawal may lead to cramps, convulsions, and even to death from respiratory failure. The post-convalescent treatment, both psychological and physical, is longer and more difficult than with morphine.

Drug addiction is an international problem. The addicts preference however seems to vary greatly in different regions. In the Far East opium has been used as a narcotic for centuries, [ 23 ] in the middle East hashish. In other places heroin addiction has been more sporadic. The first place where heroin addiction seems to have been a major problem was the United States of America. The main site of the addiction was New York where 98 per cent of all drug addicts were reported at the time to be heroin addicts.

The Public Health Service Hospitals in the United States discontinued dispensing heroin at its relief stations in In the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association at its 71st annual session adopted the following resolution: "that heroin be eliminated from all medicinal preparations and that it should not be administered, prescribed, nor dispensed; and that the importation, manufacture, and sale of heroin should be prohibited in the United States.

Several other authorities, especially the police, supported this resolution. The growing number of crimes in the larger cities in the United States alarmed the public. In while there were seventeen murders committed in London there were in New York City and heroin addiction was blamed for a number of the New York murders. Placing the consumers receiving their drugs from the illicit narcotic street venders in New York City at a minimum of 10, based upon statistics of arrests , using at an average of ten grains a day per individual, we have a total of 76, ounces as the yearly quantity of heroin used by the narcotic addicts who procure their drugs on the streets in New York City alone.

The result of these observations was a congressional law that prohibited the import of crude opium for the purpose of manufacturing heroin June The production of heroin by pharmaceutical factories ceased within a very short time. As a substitute for heroin, the factories concentrated their efforts on the production of codeine. The quantity of codeine substituted for heroin must be about two to six times the weight of the quantity of heroin originally used if a similar medicinal effect is to be obtained.

Since there is little difference between the quantities of heroin and codeine produceable from a given quantity of opium, the quantity of opium required to be imported into the United States had to be greater after the enactment of the law. This is the main reason for the high opium import of the United States shortly after Although the legitimate production of heroin practically ceased after , the addicts' demand for the drug continued to be supplied by smugglers. The heroin traffic in United States reached its peak in the last part of the 's.

By , there was a sharp drop in the traffic due mainly to international restrictions. The heroin still in the illicit traffic was generally adulterated. When World War II started, stricter border controls and lack of shipping lessened the illicit supplies of heroin. To stretch the supplies the traffickers resorted to more and more adulteration and dilution of the drug.

The heroin finally obtained by the addict often contained less than two per cent of heroin. Many addicts were involuntarily cured, some without even realizing it. Others broke off the habit at least temporarily. As one stated: "If I could get good heroin or morphine again I would probably go back to using the drugs.

As it is, I won't touch it as it has so much other stuff mixed with it that it is dangerous. The following figures show the amount of seized heroin in the United States from till [ 34 ]. Another part of the world where heroin addiction attracted attention was Egypt. From ancient times hashish had been used as a narcotic in this country. The use of narcotics was however not such a serious problem before the "white drugs" came into the picture. This started in , cocaine first being sold non-medically and shortly afterwards heroin.

Given the failures of prohibition , jurisdictions around the world are starting to look at the issue differently. Several have brought cannabis under regulatory control, much like alcohol and tobacco, and others have removed criminal penalties associated with other drug use. Most of the arguments to maintain current prohibitionist drug laws continue the moral objection to drug use that began in Australia with our early race-driven opium laws.

Since the beginning of recorded history, people have been taking mind-altering substances. Read more: Australia's recreational drug policies aren't working, so what are the options for reform? Whether you morally agree with drug use or not, the current drug laws are neither reducing harm nor stopping use.

Festival of Social Science — Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. When considering harm to the user and to wider society, alcohol is much more of a problem than MDMA.

Krists Luhaers. But how did some drugs become illegal in the first place? And what drives our current drug laws?