Opium, the first opioid, is derived from the sap of opium poppies, whose growth and cultivation dates back to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia around 3400 BC. Egyptians and Persians initially used opium. Eventually spreading to various parts of Europe, India, China, and the Middle East. During the 18th century, physicians in the U.S. used opium as a therapeutic agent for multiple purposes, including relieving pain in cancer, spasms from tetanus, and pain attendant to menstruation and childbirth. It was merely towards the end of the 18th century that some physicians came to recognize the addictive quality of opium. In 1805, morphine and codeine were isolated from opium, and morphine served as a cure for opium addiction since its addictive characteristics were not known. Morphine’s use as a treatment for opium addiction was initially well received as morphine has about ten times more euphoric effects than the equivalent amount of opium. Over the years, however, morphine abuse increased. Heroin was synthesized from morphine in 1874 by an English chemist, but was not made commercially until 1898 by the Bayer Pharmaceutical Company. Attempts were proposed to use heroin in place of morphine due to problems of morphine abuse. However, it turned out that heroin was also highly addictive, and was eventually classified as an illegal drug in the United States. Today, heroin in the United States comes mostly from Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Latin America, Mexico, and the Middle East. It is generally sold in a white or brownish powder form or as a black sticky substance known as “black tar” heroin. Heroin found on the streets is usually mixed with other drugs or substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, talc, baking... ... middle of paper ... ...ss the body. This brief but intense rush is then followed by a deep, drowsy state of relaxation and contentment that is marked by a clouding of consciousness and by poor concentration and attention. This state lasts two to four hours and then gradually wears off. Some individuals do react negatively to heroin, experiencing only anxiety, nausea, and depression. Additionally some addicts may experience the burning out or detrition of muscles from injection sites intramuscularly (mainlining). Heroin is consumed usually 3 main ways: cut then snorted, smoked, or injected. When being cut, the heroin is placed in a straight line then snorted up and through the nasal cavity. Smoked, heroin is placed in pipe (like a marijuana pipe), then heated, and inhaled. Lastly heroin can be heated to a liquid form mixed with water and injected into veins and muscles under the skin.
Where did this drug come from and what makes it different from any other drug that is on the market? Heroin's origins go back long before Christ was a bleep on the radar. It goes back to 1200 B.C. Or the Bronze Age. At that time how ever heroin would be known as its chemically altered state of the poppy seeds. Even at that time however the ancient peoples of that time knew that if the poppy seeds juice were collected and dried. the extract that was left behind could make a effective painkiller. This would later be named opium. There were small incidents of it appearing in Europe, for instance it was used by the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. But as a whole it would take more then a millennium for opium to travel from the Middle East to the Europe. This only occurred do to crusades. In just a few hundred after that is went from a rarely used painkiller to a liquid that was said to cure all aliments and would even lead to the most humiliating defeat China Empire. In the 1803 opium became dwarfed by its new brother morphine which is named in honor of the Greek god Morpheus who is the god of dreams. Morphine is an extract of opium and is ruffly 10 times the strength of its counter part. After Morphine creation it was put to used almost at once to assist battle field victims. This was a mistake however, because this refined does of opium is also 10 times more addicting then it was in its original form. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers would retur...
It is eight a.m. and she has been up for hours at this point. The diarrhea is uncontrollable and her stomach is killing her. She needs to vomit again. Her bed is covered in sweat. Her body feels hot, but she is freezing cold. Her hands are shaking. Her legs are restless and her entire body aches as if she had been run over by a semi. She feels weak, both physically and mentally. Tears stream down her face because she hates herself. Addiction is the reason her mother has custody of her daughter, Abby. Most of her family and friends disown her. This drug has taken over her life. At this point, she is debating if everyone, including herself, would benefit from her suicide. Jenny was dope sick, suffering
One type of ruthless drug is called as heroin which can deeply affect a human’s behavior. Heroin is an illegal but highly addictive drug that is processed from morphine, a substance which occurs naturally and can be taken out from the seed pod of poppy plants. It inhibits the central nervous system. The effects of heroin addicts are of course b...
Drug use and abuse is as old as mankind itself. Human beings have always had a desire to eat or drink substances that make them feel relaxed, stimulated, or euphoric. Wine was used at least from the time of the early Egyptians; narcotics from 4000 B.C.; and medicinal use of marijuana has been dated to 2737 B.C. in China. But it was not until the nineteenth century that the active substances in drugs were extracted. There was a time in history when some of these newly discovered substances, such as morphine, laudanum, cocaine, were completely unregulated and prescribed freely by physicians for a wide variety of ailments.
Heroin was originally synthesized in 1874 by a man named C.R Alder Wright. Created as a solution to opium, a drug that had plagued many American households. It was originally produced for medical purposes evidently becoming highly addictive. Heroin “... was originally marketed as a non-addictive substance” (“History of Addiction”) which inevitably increased its popularity. It became especially popular in places of poverty. Heroin became a solution to struggle. So common it was almost as if heroin was a prescribed medicine for hardship. Known as “[a] treatment of many illnesses and pain” (“A brief history of addiction”) but later revealed that it caused more harm than good. Being so easily accessible it became immensely common among musicians.
This has been going on for generations. In the mid to late 1800’s, opium was a popular drug. Opium dens were all over the wild west back in the 1800’s. The opium came from Chinese immigrants who came here to work on the railroads. They used the drug to help them work and forget about the pain caused by the hard work they were doing. Opium were more used than saloons. Opium was seen as a cure for alcoholics by the late 1800’s. It was from opium that morphine, was developed as a pain killer around 1810. The people of the time called heroin a wonder drug because it stopped severe pain that came with medical operations or traumatic injuries. Morphine left the user high in a completely numb dream state. During the Civil War, the numbers of people
An estimated 3.7 million people had used heroin at some time in their life, as of 2005. Over 119,000 of the people surveyed reported using it within the month preceding the survey. Heroin is an illegal, highly addictive drug. It is the most abused and quickest way to get a high from the opiates. An opiate is a drug with morphine-like effects, derived from opium. Heroin comes from morphine, a naturally occurring substance extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants. Heroin can be in the form of white or brownish powder, or a black sticky substance known as “black tar heroin.” Purer heroin is becoming more popular on the streets. Most of the street heroin is “cut,” or laced, with other drugs or substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. Quinine is a bitter crystalline compound present in cinchona bark, used as a tonic and formerly as an ant malarial drug. Most heroin abusers do not know the actual strength or content of the drug which puts them at a greater risk of overdose or death.
Morphine, codeine and heroin are all derived from the same plant, the opium poppy. The opium drugs have been used for medicinal and recreational use for centuries. In the 1700s opium was mixed into an alcohol solution to help with pain relief as they are a strong depressant. This mixture would be used for helping soldiers with wounds or for the numbing of pain during surgery. Opium was in very high demand and the British Empire controlled the opium fields in India. Britain traded the opium to China for exchange for tea leaves that could only be grown in China. Because of the highly addictive nature of opiuates the people of China got addicted. To combat the addiction the emperor started to burn the boats that sent the opium which started the
“Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy”. (Wiki) . Opium is said to have been in existence since ancient times, and is still produced using ancient methods. .Before opium became a popular substance to abuse it was mostly used for medicinal purposes or uses. Countries such as “Sumerian, Egypt, and India” ( opiates.net). contributed to the national widespread of opium. They found it to be the most valuable form of pain relief. The wide spread availability of opium helped surgeons all over perform longer surgery ,which lead to more efficient and safer medical operations. Alcohol and ethyl were also common pain relievers in ancient times, but many physicians preferred opium because it was less threatening to the human’s sensory organs and didn’t impair their intellectual/motor judgment as much. This was only when opium was used at correct lower dosages. Physicians believed opium’s healing medical capabilities consisted of “resists to poison and venomous bites, cures chronic headache, v...
More specifically, they come from opium, or the poppy plant (Addictions and Recovery). This is the same as a poppy seed that you find in or on your food products and for example, an everything bagel contains poppy seeds. It is in a way the same thing only consumed differently, in a different amount and obviously for different reasons. Synthetic opiates are manufactured with chemicals and are not completely natural. Their structures mimic that of the natural opiates and are created in laboratories (Synthetic Opiates List). Natural opium and synthetic opiates are mixed to create semi-synthetic opiates (Synthetic Opiates List). Basically, a true opiate would be directly derived from a poppy plant and contain natural opium alkaloids while both synthetic and semi-synthetic opiates are
While most drugs are a combination of substances derived and created in varying circumstances, morphine is unique in the fact that it is one of twenty parts of the drug called opium that is derived from the opium poppy plant (Arbog, 2005, p. 1 ). Instead of being created through the mixing of substances, a usable form of morphine can simply be filtered out of the opium plant. Therefore to understand the history of morphine it is important to understand how the opium plant came into the spectrum of medical use in the first place.
The chemical company Bayer offered heroin as a cough suppressant and was advertised as being a non-addictive substitute to morphine. Free samples of heroin were distributed through the mail to morphine addicts in the early 1900s, with high hopes of helping them overcome their bad habit. In 1909, Congress passed the Opium Exclusion Act barring the importation of opium for the use of smoking. The act was the first initiative in the United States war on drugs. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 taxed and limited the access to opiates, but it also served as a de facto prohibition of the drugs. That same year, Kennedy Foster wrote an article in the New York Medical Journal that made his distaste in the use of morphine known. A few years after Bayer stopped mass producing heroin, German scientists at the University of Frankfurt first synthesized oxycodone with the hope that it would retain the analgesic effects of morphine and heroin with less dependence. Heroin sales stopped completely with the passing of The Heroin Act of 1924, which made the manufacture, sale, possession, and use of the drug illegal in the United States. (Website
Heroin can be smoked, snorted, or injected. Some abusers even mix it with food or make heroin brownies. Just like how people make marijuana brownies. They use that same method for heroin.
Opium has negative and positive affects on the brain and this dynamic of affects can also be seen with its behavioral and health effects depending on length and frequency of the usage. At the start of opium usage users experience positive effects including a sense of euphoria, relaxation and a decrease pain which stems from its analgesic properties. Then shortly thereafter individuals begin to feel lethargic. Unfortunately, extended usage of opium comes with negative behavioral changes. These range from changes in libido, which is often inhibited as well as increases in anxiety or in mood disturbances. Opium usage has also been shown to increase the risky behaviors of users. These risky behaviors will usually stop upon cessation of opium usage
4. Cocaine is either snorted or dissolved in water and injected directly into the blood stream and Crack is smoked.