In all honesty if I could get pure oxycodone powder or pure diamorphine I'd choose oxy, even if it cost more. I just like the more stimulating high. Better would be a 2:1 mixture of oxycodone to heroin, get the best of both worlds.
I think it has to do with it being AFAIK the first synthetic opioid. It was new, people got hooked on it, addiction was poorly understood. It probably scared a lot of people that they'd make something even more addictive and it was just going to get worse. Also with heroin you can smoke, snort, and shoot it, and H can make very concentrated shots due to greater water solubility. It's the only semi-synthetic opiate made clandestinely and strongly associated with gangsters.
Till the 60's, a lot of the street heroin was legit pharms diverted and smuggled. This pissed off the US so they began pressuring countries with pharmaceutical diamorphine to ban it.
Strangely, if my memory is correct reading through old UNODC bulletin on narcotics, the Soviet Union was the biggest producer of opiates for some years, including diamorphine. The red scare may have also played a role.
Also it might have it's roots in racism. Before drug prohibition, the profile of an opiate addict was white women, Asian men, and medical professionals. The idea of white women smoking O with "Chinamen" must have driven them nuts! Afterward the typical profile of an opiate addict were black men, many of whom switched to heroin when cocaine almost disappeared. I think up until the 70's to 90's. This kind of puts it into perspective why the USA secretly aided heroin traffickers all in the name of fighting Communism. It was sold to people they did not give a fuck about anyway. Reminds me of that scene in the Godfather where that one guy said to just sell heroin to blacks, calling them animals who should just kill themselves.
For awhile there would be bills in congress that would legalize medical diamorphine, proposed every year. It'd usually die in committee. Don't know who it was or if someone's still trying. Might have kind of became a non-issue with other strong opioids becoming common. Which is too bad, because diamorphine maintenance therapy could help a lot of addicts, and diamorphine might be more effective than other shit for some other patients.
jktm said:
and one thing I'm so fucking tired of (especially from psychiatrists that should know better) is that all Rx opioids are synthetic forms of heroin...when morphine is the natural one along with codeine...lol (yes, I've had a psych tell me that morphine vicodin and oxy are made from heroin.............)
That whole "Oxycontin is a synthetic form of heroin" thing pisses me off. There is no diamorphine in nature, it's as synthetic as oxycodone is. Using that logic amphetamines, methaqualone, and even PCP would be natural.
