HEROIN

Heroin

Heroin

History Of Heroin

The opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia as long ago as 3400 BC. The chemical analysis of opium in the 19th century revealed that most of its activity could be ascribed to two alkaloids, codeine and morphine.

Diacetylmorphine was first synthesized in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, an English chemist working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London. He had been experimenting with combining morphine with various acids. (McLellan, et al. 2007) He boiled anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride for several hours and produced a more potent, acetylated form of morphine, now called diacetylmorphine.

From 1898 through to 1910 diacetylmorphine was marketed under the name heroin as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant. Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction before it was discovered that it rapidly metabolizes intomorphine. (McLellan, et al. 2007) As such, heroin is essentially a quicker acting form of morphine. The company was embarrassed by the new finding, which became a historic blunder for Bayer.(American Methadone Treatment Association, 2008)

In the U.S.A. the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed in 1914 tocontrol the sale and distribution of "heroin" and other opioids, which allowed the drug tobe prescribed and sold for medical purposes. In 1924 the United States Congress banned its sale, importation or manufacture.

The Use, Abuse

As with other opioids, heroin is used as both a pain-killer and a recreational drug and has an extremely high potential for abuse. Frequent and regular administration is associated with tolerance, moderate physical dependence, and severe psychological dependence which develops intoaddiction.

Internationally, heroin is controlled under Schedules I and IV of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It is illegal tomanufacture, possess, or sell diacetylmorphine without a licence in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Iran, India, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and Swaziland. (American Methadone Treatment Association, 2008)

Under the name diamorphine, it is a legally prescribed controlled drug in the United Kingdom. It is available for prescription tolong-term users in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark with counseling todeter addiction.

When taken orally, diacetylmorphine undergoes extensive first-pass metabolism via deacetylation, making it a prodrug for the systemic delivery of morphine.(American Methadone Treatment Association, 2008) When the drug is injected, however, it avoids this first-pass effect, very rapidly crossing the blood-brain barrier due tothe presence of the acetyl groups, which render it much more lipid-soluble than morphine itself.

Once in ...