poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
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The Many Faces of Heroin
Afghan brown, black tar, Colombian white. All distinct physical and chemical variations of "street" heroin. Different colors, different names, different origins and different levels of purity for one drug.
When covering heroin, news reports almost always tend to focus on seizures of shipments, the dismantling of trafficking networks, and of course, addiction, overdoses, and "epidemics" of use. Very rarely, though, is the drug itself and its many forms explained.
A Short History
Heroin, or diacetylmorphine, is a semi-synthetic opiate made from morphine, which derives from opium, the dried milk of the opium poppy.
The British chemist C.R. Alder Wright first synthesized heroin in 1874. The substance (four to eight times as potent as morphine) only gained popularity after being re-synthesized some 20 years later by Felix Hoffmann, a chemist working for Bayer Company, who named it “Heroin”, from the German word “heroisch” (or heroic) because of its effect on the user.
See the TalkingDrugs series - The Evolution of Opiates in the UK
In 1898, the drug started to be sold as an over-the-counter cough suppressant, and was highly recommended by doctors who believed it could counter the addictiveness of codeine and morphine. As Heinrich Dreser, head of the Bayer pharmacological laboratory, stated in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1900, “It [heroin] possesses many advantages over morphine. It's not hypnotic, and there's no danger of acquiring a habit.”
However, this was an enormous misunderstanding of the drug's potency. Bayer ceased production of heroin in 1913 and attitudes swiftly began to change as government's around the world began to restrict the legal distribution of opiates, moves that were largely set in motion by the signing of the International Opium Convention in 1912.
Heroin's Different Forms
Color, physical state, producing region, heat stability, water solubility, levels of purity and “cuts” determine different types of heroin.
Most street heroin is cut with a wide range of substances such as sugar, flour, caffeine, starch, powdered milk, quinine, and, even if rarely, strychnine (apart from being used as rat poison, in low doses it is a stimulant).
Heroin, depending on its form, can be smoked, injected, or snorted.
Cont -
http://www.talkingdrugs.org/the-many-faces-of-heroin
Afghan brown, black tar, Colombian white. All distinct physical and chemical variations of "street" heroin. Different colors, different names, different origins and different levels of purity for one drug.
When covering heroin, news reports almost always tend to focus on seizures of shipments, the dismantling of trafficking networks, and of course, addiction, overdoses, and "epidemics" of use. Very rarely, though, is the drug itself and its many forms explained.
A Short History
Heroin, or diacetylmorphine, is a semi-synthetic opiate made from morphine, which derives from opium, the dried milk of the opium poppy.
The British chemist C.R. Alder Wright first synthesized heroin in 1874. The substance (four to eight times as potent as morphine) only gained popularity after being re-synthesized some 20 years later by Felix Hoffmann, a chemist working for Bayer Company, who named it “Heroin”, from the German word “heroisch” (or heroic) because of its effect on the user.
See the TalkingDrugs series - The Evolution of Opiates in the UK
In 1898, the drug started to be sold as an over-the-counter cough suppressant, and was highly recommended by doctors who believed it could counter the addictiveness of codeine and morphine. As Heinrich Dreser, head of the Bayer pharmacological laboratory, stated in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal in 1900, “It [heroin] possesses many advantages over morphine. It's not hypnotic, and there's no danger of acquiring a habit.”
However, this was an enormous misunderstanding of the drug's potency. Bayer ceased production of heroin in 1913 and attitudes swiftly began to change as government's around the world began to restrict the legal distribution of opiates, moves that were largely set in motion by the signing of the International Opium Convention in 1912.
Heroin's Different Forms
Color, physical state, producing region, heat stability, water solubility, levels of purity and “cuts” determine different types of heroin.
Most street heroin is cut with a wide range of substances such as sugar, flour, caffeine, starch, powdered milk, quinine, and, even if rarely, strychnine (apart from being used as rat poison, in low doses it is a stimulant).
Heroin, depending on its form, can be smoked, injected, or snorted.
Cont -
http://www.talkingdrugs.org/the-many-faces-of-heroin
