THE HISTORY OF HEROIN

In the United States, the use of heroin is considered to be a problem as it is a drug, which can cause addiction.

Morphine (a naturally occurring substance taken from the seedpod of the Asian poppy plant) is used to manufacture heroin. This drug is available in the form of powder of white or brown color. ‘H’, ‘Junk’, ‘Smack’ and ‘Skag’ are some of the street names of heroin.

There are other names, which may refer to the kinds of heroin manufactured in a certain region. ‘Mexican Black Tar’ is an example of such a name.

In around 3400 B.C, the opium poppy seed was grown in the lower Mesopotamia. In the year 1874, a British chemist (C.R. Alder Wright) who worked at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London first produced heroin. He was performing some experiments by mixing different acids with morphine. Diacetylmorphine (a more powerful acetylated form of morphine) was produced by him by boiling acetic anhydride over a stove for quite a few hours.