The Mysterious Heroin Pills for Smoking
In the 1920's and 1930's a very peculiar use of drugs sprang up in the Far East, grew to enormous proportions, and spread to the United States and other countries, before it partially died down again. This was the use of "red pills" or "heroin pills" in lieu of smoking opium.
These pills were strange mixtures, generally containing such ingredients as heroin, caffeine, a cinchona alkaloid (quinine, cinchonine, or cinchonidine), strychnine, and aspirin or salicylic acid, mixed with starch, cane sugar or milk sugar (lactose), a delicate perfume, and a little dye to colour the pills. They were commonly coloured red or pink, but sometimes black, yellow, or simply dingy white. They were smoked, not in the usual opium pipe, but usually in a vase specially adapted to the purpose. Their effect was much disputed then, and is still highly mysterious.
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The first seizures of such pills in Hong Kong took place in 1928. These pills contained 2 milligrammes of heroin each, and were otherwise composed of lactose with caffeine and traces of strychnine; coloured pink, and about the size of a pea. It was said that they could be bought in Shanghai at the price of $14 per bag of 10,000 pills, and could be sold in Canton at $20 per bag. The retail price was said to be one cent per pill. In 1928, the seizure in Hong Kong totalled about 200,000 pills. (O.C.862).