• Select Your Topic Then Scroll Down
    Alcohol Bupe Benzos
    Cocaine Heroin Opioids
    RCs Stimulants Misc
    Harm Reduction All Topics Gabapentinoids
    Tired of your habit? Struggling to cope?
    Want to regain control or get sober?
    Visit our Recovery Support Forums

Release dates of popular drugs (OTC drugs, opioids, uppers, anti-d's, etc)

enoughorangejuice?

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 7, 2007
Messages
3,213
I thought this was pretty interesting. This list was compiled by me, i didn't copy it from anywhere, just made a list of psychoactives i could think of and researched the release date / year created / year FDA approved. Maybe this will interest some of you, maybe not. I hope so though, and PLEASE feel free to add more chemicals/drugs and the dates they were created/released.

***​

. . . . year made - chemical name - brand name / other info . . . .


  • 1527 - deodorized tincture of opium - Laudanum (was introduced to Western medicine)
    ...
  • 1775 - nitrous oxide - N2O (first synthesized by Joseph Priestley [***see bottom of this post for a fact about him***)
    ...
  • 1804 - morphine (not til 1853 w/ invention of hypodermic needle did use spread)
  • 1819 - caffiene (isolated for the first time)
  • 1828 - nicotine
  • 1832 - codeine (isolated for the first time, in France)
    ...
  • 1853 - acetylsalicylic acid - Aspirin ( released 1898 )
  • 1860 - cocaine (extracted from coca leaves)
  • 1874 - diacetylmorphine - Heroin
  • 1874 - gamma-Hydoxybutyric acid - GHB
  • 1887 - amphetamine
  • 1887 - ephedrine
  • 1891 - 3,4-methylendioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA [patented in 1914])
  • 1893 - methamphetamine
  • 1896 - mescaline
    ...
  • 1901 - ibogaine - (first isolated from Tabernanthe iboga)
  • 1910 - 3,4-methylendioxy-amphetamine - (MDA)
  • 1916 - oxycodone (known as Eukadol, not released until 1939)
  • 1919 - crystal methamphetamine
  • 1920 - hydrocodone (not released until 1951)
  • 1924 - hydromorphone
  • 1931 - DMT synthesized (first found to be halluncinogenic in 1950s)
  • 1937 - methadone (patentend in 1941, release in 1947)
  • 1938 - LSD
  • 1939 - meperidine (Demerol)
  • 1940 - Fentanyl (released in the 1950s)
  • 1947 - LSA (ergine)
    ...
  • 1954 - methylphenidate (patented)
  • 1954 - chlordiazepoxide - Librium {first benzo}
  • 1955 - imipramine - Tofranil
  • 1955 - acetaminophen - Tylenol
  • 1955 - methaqualone - Quaaludes
  • 1958 - phencyclidine - PCP (introduced into clinical anesthesia)
  • 1958 - dextromethorphan - DXM (approved by the FDA for use as an anti-tussive.)
  • 1961 - ibuprofen - Advil, Motrin
  • 1962 - ketamine - Ketalar (synthesized, 1970 released, 1999 thrown into CIII)
  • 1963 - diazepam - Valium
  • 1964 - tetrahydrocannabinol - THC (first isolated)
  • 1966 - bupropion - Wellbutrin
  • 1969 - temazepam - Restoril (synthesized in early '60s, FDA approved in 1981)
  • 1969 - alprazolam - Xanax
  • 1969 - suboxone (first marketed in the '80s, FDA approved in 2002)
  • 1970 - fluoxetine - Prozac
  • 1971 - lorazepam - Ativan
  • 1975 - clonazepam - Klonopin (generics released in 1997)
  • 1984 - salvinorin A - (main active molecule in Salvia divinorum)
  • 1985 - nabilone - Cesamet (was tested in the 1970s)
  • 1985 - dronabinol - Marinol (also tested in the 1970s)
  • 1988 - duloxetine - Cymbalta
  • 1989 - citalopram - Celexa
  • 1992 - paroxetine - Paxil
  • 1993 - venlafaxine - Effexor
  • 1995 - oxycodone CR - Oxycontin
  • 1997 - escitalopram - Lexapro

Please post some more drugs i can add to the list (i'll look up the dates if you can't find them, i'd love to make a really comprehensive list. Its interesting to me :)


*** Priestley was delighted with his discovery [nitrous]: "I have now discovered an air five or six times as good as common air... nothing I ever did has surprised me more, or is more satisfactory."
 
Last edited:
Chlordiazepoxide is not at its right place on this list, it is put between Aspirin and Cocaine, it should be next to Methylphenidate....

Very interesting list.....
 
You should have MDMA in there, but I'm not sure of the year.

Looks like no good drugs have come out in the last 50 years, except some opiate analogues.
 
^^Oxycodone? Hydrocodone? Fentanyl? Meperidine? Hydrmorphone? jus a few opiates that aint on that list i can think of.....
 
...
DMT was first synthesized in 1931, and demonstrated to be hallucinogenic in 1956.
1958: phencyclidine (phenyl cyclohexyl piperidine, PCP) introduced into clinical anesthesia
1962: ketamine (Ketalar) synthesized by Stevens
1965: ketamine tried in humans *
chosen to be most promising from 200 PCP derivatives tested in animals
1970: ketamine officially released for clinical use in U.S.
1999: ketamine becomes a schedule III substance under the CSA
 
jasoncrest said:
Chlordiazepoxide is not at its right place on this list, it is put between Aspirin and Cocaine, it should be next to Methylphenidate....

Very interesting list.....


You are right, I put it back in the 1800's back accident...gonna move it now...


------


OverDriven said:
You should have MDMA in there, but I'm not sure of the year.

Looks like no good drugs have come out in the last 50 years, except some opiate analogues.


I do....

# 1910 - 3,4-methylendioxy-amphetamine - (MDA)
# 1912 - 3,4-methylendioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA [patented in 1914])
 
Last edited:
lacey k said:
^^Oxycodone? Hydrocodone? Fentanyl? Meperidine? Hydrmorphone? jus a few opiates that aint on that list i can think of.....


Hydromorphone was already on the list but I added oxycodone, fentanyl, meperidine, hydrocodone.


-----



1893 - methamphetamine
1919 - crystal methamphetamine
What's your logic behind these dates?

Recrystallization isn't a new process, I would have assumed the crystal product was formed around the same time the compound was discovered.


No reasonining other than what wikipedia was telling me....however they have sources for almost 75-80% of their INFO so i trust it fairly well....

History

Methamphetamine was first synthesized from ephedrine in Japan in 1893
by chemist Nagayoshi Nagai. In 1919, crystallized methamphetamine was synthesized by Akira Ogata via reduction of ephedrine using red phosphorus and iodine. The related compound amphetamine was first synthesized in Germany in 1887 by Lazăr Edeleanu.
 
Last edited:
You didn't include heroin(diacetylmorphine). If my memory is right, it was invented in England by Wright in 1894. It was then "branded" Heroin and put out by Bayer in the early 1900's.

I'm sure wiki will provide the actual dates. I'll look it up later if you don't get to it.


Interesting thread!
 
mikemikemike said:
Oxycodone was first commercialized by Purdue in 1995. Great post EnoughOJ


thanks and i added OxyCONTIN to the list (1995 as you said), and left the original Oxycodone when it was synthesized in 1916.

I thought this was interesting and figured i'd share...


Oxycodone was first synthesized in a German laboratory in 1916, a few years after the German pharmaceutical company Bayer had stopped the mass production of heroin due to addiction and abuse by both patients and physicians. It was hoped that a thebaine-derived drug would retain the analgesic effects of morphine and heroin with less of the euphoric effect which led to addiction and over-use.....


^ well i guess Purdue Pharms just found out its just as euphoric/addictive as morphine and heroin. Funny how morphine was the first drug introduced in this list, 190+ years before Oxycontin and even over 110+ years before Eukadol (oxycodone) was synthesized.
 
phrozen said:
You didn't include heroin(diacetylmorphine). If my memory is right, it was invented in England by Wright in 1894. It was then "branded" Heroin and put out by Bayer in the early 1900's.

I'm sure wiki will provide the actual dates. I'll look it up later if you don't get to it.


Interesting thread!


Yes i did!! It was synthesized in 1874 and it says 23 years later (1897) [1874 + 23] it was re-synthesized by a man working at Bayer and released as Heroin by Bayer around 1898

1874 - diacetylmorphine - Heroin


Here's the info on it...
Heroin was first processed in 1874 by C.R. Alder Wright, an English chemist working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, England. He had been experimenting with combining morphine with various acids. He boiled anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride over a stove for several hours and produced a more potent, acetylated form of morphine, now called diacetylmorphine....

Wright's invention, however, did not lead to any further developments, and heroin only became popular after it was independently re-synthesized 23 years later by another chemist, Felix Hoffmann. Hoffmann, working at the Bayer pharmaceutical company in Elberfeld, Germany, was instructed by his supervisor Heinrich Dreser to acetylate morphine with the objective of producing codeine, a natural derivative of the opium poppy, similar to morphine but less potent and less addictive. But instead of producing codeine, the experiment produced an acetylated form of morphine that was actually 1.5-2 times more potent than morphine itself. Bayer would name the substance "heroin", probably from the word heroisch, German for heroic, because in field studies people using the medicine felt "heroic".[6]

From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children. Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction before it was discovered that heroin is converted to morphine when metabolized in the liver, and as such, "heroin" was basically only a quicker acting form of morphine. The company was somewhat embarrassed by this new finding and it became a historical blunder for Bayer.
 
Last edited:
Heichelbech said:
^ 95? Are you sure about that. I know oxycontin came out in the 90's but I thought percocet had been around longer than that.


oxycodone (known as Eukodal in the beginning) was out way before Oxycontin (controlled release) as well as Percodan..

It was hoped that a thebaine-derived drug would retain the analgesic effects of morphine and heroin with less of the euphoric effect which led to addiction and over-use. To some extent this was achieved, as oxycodone does not "hit" the central nervous system with the same immediate punch as heroin or morphine do and it does not last as long. The subjective experience of a "high" was still reported for oxycodone, however, and it made its way into medical usage in small increments in most Western countries until the introduction of the OxyContin preparation radically boosted oxycodone use.

OxyContin is one of the leading opioid painkillers on the market. In 2001, OxyContin was the highest sold drug of its kind, and in 2000, over 6.5 million prescriptions were written.
 
Chubba75 said:
Why didn't the first chemist crystallize the methamphetamine?

Don't tell me it takes 26 years to crystallize a substance.


I dont know, do all chemists synthesize a chemical and then decide they have to crystallize every substance they make?
 
thedeadlywar said:
I noticed, on lsd you put 1942. It was actually first synthesized in 1938.


thanks, you are correct.



-----------



anyone know when oxymorphone was first released/synthesized?
 
i found the most surprising one to be Bupropion. i had no clue that stuff was used as far back as 1966.

cool post btw.
 
^ yeah i would have guessed prozac (SSRI) would have been released BEFORE wellbutrin.

thanks, i thought it was pretty interesting as well.
 
^maybe the only methamphetamine first produced was in its freebase form, which is an oil at room temp. weren't amphetamines around for a while before their psychoactivity was discovered? that could explain why no one bothered to crystalize it in the first place.
 
Top