Heroin History: 1900s

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End of the 19th Century

At the end of the 19th century in both America and Britain, opium and morphine were popular for medical and recreational purposes. While heroin was first derived at about this time by boiling morphine, it would be a while before it too would become a popular drug.

Working-class families in England used opium for all types of illnesses and injuries. Coughs (common for those with tuberculosis or pneumonia), sleeplessness or injuries would be soothed by these drugs. Many of those who supplied the drug were not doctors, and overdoses were not unusual. Some mothers who gave the drug to calm fussy babies inadvertently killed them by giving too much.

When the Civil War came, morphine was the drug of choice to alleviate the terrible injuries of the soldiers. Doctors of the time had few tools or drugs. When a person was shot in the leg, the normal treatment was amputation. Morphine was the only thing that made the gunshot, amputation, and recovery tolerable. But thousands of soldiers became addicted to the drug and remained addicted after the end of the war. Addiction to morphine became known as the “Soldier’s Disease.”

In the US, the liquid opium called laudanum was mostly used by women, as men could find relief in alcohol. Opium use accompanied the Chinese who came to the West to build railroads. Opium dens were therefore found in San Francisco and Denver, as well as other larger western cities.

Heroin’s Marketing Begins

In 1898, the Bayer pharmaceutical company began an aggressive marketing campaign to sell its commercial preparation of Heroin. That was the name they gave to their formulation of diacetylmorphine, or the product of boiling morphine for several hours. Heroin was heavily promoted as being non-addicting, and therefore an excellent treatment for morphine addiction. Bronchitis, tuberculosis and other cough-inducing illnesses were also treated with Heroin. In 1906, the American Medical Association approved Heroin for general use and recommended that it be used in place of morphine.

This free rein soon resulted in a population of 200,000 heroin addicts in New York City. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act was passed that was an attempt to stop the abuse of cocaine, heroin, and cannabis. Under this law, it became illegal to own, use or be addicted to illicitly-obtained narcotics. Doctors and pharmacists were required to register and pay a tax on all prescriptions. This was the beginning of arrests for drug abuse. In some areas, the majority of prisoners in federal facilities would be incarcerated there on drug charges.

In 1924, the deputy commissioner of the New York Police reported that 94% of all crimes were being committed by heroin addicts. Soon after, the drug was outlawed for both medical and illicit use. The League of Nations followed with more restrictions, and manufacture and export of heroin began to be controlled.

The French Connection

These regulations and bans just moved heroin production from factories in Europe to clandestine labs in China. Trafficking channels to Europe and the US began to be controlled by organized crime in Europe, resulting in the “French Connection”: the importing of unrefined heroin to Marseille, France, where it went through its final refinement before being shipped to Northeastern US cities and Europe.

During World War II, heroin supplies into the US were restricted due to increased security. Many American addicts were no longer able to get the drug and the numbers of addicts fell. But this new pattern only lasted until the end of World War II. Then the crime syndicates went back into business. Not too long after that, America’s participation in conflicts in Southeast Asia put millions of GIs right in the crosshairs of heroin manufacturers and traffickers.

The shifting of heroin manufacture from Turkey to Southeast Asia came as a result of complicated political plays that occurred in the wake of World War II. When the dust settled, American and European crime syndicates transferred their supplier routes to the Golden Triangle - where Burma (now Myanmar), Thailand and Laos converged.

In the next twenty years, nearly four million American service men and women would be stationed in this area or nearby. This would be one of the influences that would lead to American heroin addiction rates that were of a whole new order of magnitude.

While organized crime kept heroin flowing into Europe throughout the 1950s, 1960s and the early 1970s, opium cultivation in the Golden Triangle—Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and Laos—continued to grow. The US and France supplied Golden Triangle drug lords with ammunition, arms and air transport as a way of funding the fight against communism that was occurring in that area.

But this strategy backfired. Not only were the millions of American soldiers—and those of their allies—exposed to an abundance of heroin while in Southeast Asia, there was a huge supply of the drug to send to the US. This influx of heroin hit the West Coast hardest. In cities like Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland, heroin would still be a major drug problem in the next millennium.

By the mid-1960s, the presence of US troops in Vietnam was being blamed for the increase in heroin on the streets. Some troops became addicted to heroin and brought the habit home, and others saw heroin trafficking as a way to make money. Some high-profile deaths started being seen as a result. Like Janis Joplin, who died in Hollywood in 1970 of a heroin overdose.

The early 1970s saw several major shifts take place in the supply and law enforcement arenas. President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973 and declared war on drug trafficking in the US. Then in 1975, Saigon fell, cutting off the regular channels of heroin trafficking. Mexico and its poppy fields in the Sierra Madre suddenly became more important in keeping American appetites supplied.

Nixon’s war on drugs soon led American agencies to begin eradicating opium fields in Mexico, using the Agent Orange that was used as a defoliant in Vietnam. This anti-drug push opened up opportunities for drug manufacturing in the Golden Crescent—Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Afghanistan became the biggest supplier to Europe and the US.

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The Emphasis Shifts to Recovery

In much of the Twentieth Century, the primary emphasis was on trying to arrest the problem out of existence. Law enforcement went after the whole chain of possession and trafficking, from those moving major shipments to the addict. Those on drug charges accounted for half to three-quarters of the populations of some federal penitentiaries. But as lives began to be lost in great numbers and as heroin abuse provided a vector for new and old diseases, this emphasis began to shift.

New York City was always a major stronghold of heroin trafficking organizations. As hypodermic needles were usually used to administer the drug, the use of unsterilized needles enabled the spread of malaria, hepatitis, bacterial endocarditis and other diseases. The average age of a person in New York City who died due to heroin abuse—either directly from overdose or indirectly, from disease—was 27 years between 1950 and 1967.

New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller expanded the emphasis on treatment. The solution selected was the administration of methadone, a synthetic opiate that would prevent the dopesickness that addicts would suffer if they stopped using heroin. In 1960, about 200 people received methadone as treatment, but by 1974, this number grew to 30,000. In the next decade, the HIV epidemic would arrive in the United States, making it even more important that injecting drug users have a method of treatment that would prevent the spread of disease.

Meanwhile, high-profile deaths due to heroin abuse were still hitting the newspapers. Heroin contributed to the deaths of comedian John Belushi, actor River Phoenix and comedian Chris Farley between 1984 and 1997. In 1994, singer Kurt Cobain committed suicide after many years of heroin addiction.

Between the 1960s and 1990s, the purity of heroin being brought into the US increased greatly. One report showed average purity in New York City in 1983 at less than 10% but it soared to more than 60% by 1993. When heroin is purer, it can be snorted or smoked, broadening its appeal. Many people who would never inject drugs could then take it in one of these new ways. While this did reduce the transmission of disease, it also caused more people to become addicted to the drug. More affluent heroin users began to be found, no longer from the inner cities but from the suburbs.

With the advent of strong prescription opiates, the line between abuse of street opiates like heroin and prescription drugs like oxycodone of hydrocodone became blurred. OxyContin was approved for relief of severe pain in 1995. By 2003, nearly 14 million people had abused this drug for its heroin-like effects. When an OxyContin addict could not get pills, he could get heroin and vice versa. Both drugs were equally addictive.

By 2010, a new heroin problem was making its way across the American landscape: black tar heroin. A new group of Mexican drug manufacturers and traffickers with new methods were bringing this dark-colored, sticky form of heroin to American cities, circumventing the usual heroin-trafficking routes. Overdose deaths in the cities targeted by this new group began to rise.

What is The Solution?

Any examination of heroin’s history shows that drug abuse is a dead end activity. It will always have one of three outcomes: sobriety, incarceration or death. With heroin’s deadly effect on one’s breathing and heart rate, it is far too easy to attempt to achieve euphoria but instead achieves the end of one’s life.

The Narconon network of drug rehab facilities has been helping heroin addicts achieve sober, enjoyable lives since 1966. From California to South Africa and from Taiwan to Colombia, addicts of heroin and many other drugs find that they can learn how to build a new sober life to replace the one destroyed by addiction.