PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO
08-04-2006, 08:30 PM
i am very interested in the history of opiates and especially the american history of opiates....here are a couple of pics and some tidbits of knowledge. If any of you guys want to throw some old pics or historical data up it would be cool to check out.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto01.htm
"The absence of knowledge concerning our earlier and formative encounters with drugs unnecessarily impedes the already difficult task of establishing a workable and sustainable drug policy. An examination of the period of drug use that peaked around 1900 and the decline that followed it may enable us to approach the current drug problem with more confidence and reduce the likelihood that we will repeat past errors.
Until the 19th century, drugs had been used for millennia In their natural form. Cocaine and morphine, for example, were available only in coca leaves or poppy plants that were chewed, dissolved in alcoholic beverages or taken in some way that diluted the impact of the active agent. The advent of organic chemistry in the 1800s changed the available forms of these drugs. Morphine was isolated in the first decade and cocaine by 1860; In 1874 diacetylmorphine was synthesized from morphine (although It became better known as heroin when the Bayer Company introduced it in 1898).
By mid-century the hypodermic syringe was perfected, and by 1870 it had become a familiar instrument to American physicians and patients (see "The Origins of Hypodermic Medication," by Norman Howard-Jones; Scientific American, January 19711. At the same time, the astounding growth of the pharmaceutical industry intensified the ramifications of these accomplishments. As the century wore on, manufacturers grew Increasingly adept at exploiting a marketable Innovation and moving it into mass production, as well as advertising and distributing it throughout the world.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto01a.jpg
HEROIN COUGH SYRUP was one of many pharmaceuticals at the turn of the century that contained mood-altering substances. The name "heroin" was coined by Bayer In 1898. a year before the company Introduced aspirin.
During this time, because of a peculiarity of the U.S. Constitution, the powerful new forms of opium and cocaine were more readily available in America than in most nations. Under the Constitution, individual states assumed responsibility for health issues, such as regulation of medical practice and the availability of pharmacological " products. In fact, America had as many laws regarding health professions as it had states. For much of the 19th century, many states chose to have no controls at all; their legislatures reacted to the claims of contradictory health care philosophies by allowing free enterprise for all practitioners. The federal government limited its concern to communicable diseases and the provision of health care to the merchant marine and to government dependents.
Nations with a less restricted central government, such as Britain and Prussia, had a single, preeminent pharmacy law that controlled availability of dangerous drugs. In those countries, physicians had their right to practice similarly granted by a central authority. There fore, when we consider consumption of opium, opiates, coca and cocaine in 19th-century America, we are looking at an era of wide availability and unrestrained advertising. The initial enthusiasm for the purified substances was only slightly affected by any substantial doubts or fear about safety, long term health injuries or psychological dependence.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto01.jpg
History encouraged such attitudes. Crude opium, alone or dissolved in some liquid such as alcohol, was brought by European explorers and settlers to North America. Colonists regarded opium as a familiar resource for pain relief. Benjamin Franklin regularly took laudanum opium in alcohol extract-to alleviate the pain of kidney stones during the last few years of his life. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, while a student at Cambridge in 1791, began using laudanum for pain and developed a lifelong addiction to the drug. Opium use in those early decades constituted an "experiment In nature" that has been largely forgotten, even repressed, as a result of the extremely negative reaction that followed.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto02.jpg
Another interesting qoute i came across...http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=141
"Even drugs, which we tend to think of as a modern plague, first became a problem during the late nineteenth century. By 1900, one in 200 Americans was addicted to opiates or cocaine. Many wounded Civil War veterans returned home addicted to morphine, a pain-killing opiate. The typical user became addicted during medical treatment. By the end of the nineteenth century, opiates could be legally purchased at corner drugstores. Laudanum, a form of opium, cost 28 cents for a three-ounce bottle from Sears, Roebuck.
In 1885, cocaine was introduced as an elixir for every ailment from depression to hay fever. A label instructed users: "For catarrh and all head disease, snuff very little up the nose 5 times a day until cured...." Advertisements urged mothers to give cranky children a dose of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, which was laced with morphine."
The two sites above are good for some opio history...some articles contain bias on both sides but such is life right...either way history is interesting.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto01.htm
"The absence of knowledge concerning our earlier and formative encounters with drugs unnecessarily impedes the already difficult task of establishing a workable and sustainable drug policy. An examination of the period of drug use that peaked around 1900 and the decline that followed it may enable us to approach the current drug problem with more confidence and reduce the likelihood that we will repeat past errors.
Until the 19th century, drugs had been used for millennia In their natural form. Cocaine and morphine, for example, were available only in coca leaves or poppy plants that were chewed, dissolved in alcoholic beverages or taken in some way that diluted the impact of the active agent. The advent of organic chemistry in the 1800s changed the available forms of these drugs. Morphine was isolated in the first decade and cocaine by 1860; In 1874 diacetylmorphine was synthesized from morphine (although It became better known as heroin when the Bayer Company introduced it in 1898).
By mid-century the hypodermic syringe was perfected, and by 1870 it had become a familiar instrument to American physicians and patients (see "The Origins of Hypodermic Medication," by Norman Howard-Jones; Scientific American, January 19711. At the same time, the astounding growth of the pharmaceutical industry intensified the ramifications of these accomplishments. As the century wore on, manufacturers grew Increasingly adept at exploiting a marketable Innovation and moving it into mass production, as well as advertising and distributing it throughout the world.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto01a.jpg
HEROIN COUGH SYRUP was one of many pharmaceuticals at the turn of the century that contained mood-altering substances. The name "heroin" was coined by Bayer In 1898. a year before the company Introduced aspirin.
During this time, because of a peculiarity of the U.S. Constitution, the powerful new forms of opium and cocaine were more readily available in America than in most nations. Under the Constitution, individual states assumed responsibility for health issues, such as regulation of medical practice and the availability of pharmacological " products. In fact, America had as many laws regarding health professions as it had states. For much of the 19th century, many states chose to have no controls at all; their legislatures reacted to the claims of contradictory health care philosophies by allowing free enterprise for all practitioners. The federal government limited its concern to communicable diseases and the provision of health care to the merchant marine and to government dependents.
Nations with a less restricted central government, such as Britain and Prussia, had a single, preeminent pharmacy law that controlled availability of dangerous drugs. In those countries, physicians had their right to practice similarly granted by a central authority. There fore, when we consider consumption of opium, opiates, coca and cocaine in 19th-century America, we are looking at an era of wide availability and unrestrained advertising. The initial enthusiasm for the purified substances was only slightly affected by any substantial doubts or fear about safety, long term health injuries or psychological dependence.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto01.jpg
History encouraged such attitudes. Crude opium, alone or dissolved in some liquid such as alcohol, was brought by European explorers and settlers to North America. Colonists regarded opium as a familiar resource for pain relief. Benjamin Franklin regularly took laudanum opium in alcohol extract-to alleviate the pain of kidney stones during the last few years of his life. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, while a student at Cambridge in 1791, began using laudanum for pain and developed a lifelong addiction to the drug. Opium use in those early decades constituted an "experiment In nature" that has been largely forgotten, even repressed, as a result of the extremely negative reaction that followed.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/musto02.jpg
Another interesting qoute i came across...http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=141
"Even drugs, which we tend to think of as a modern plague, first became a problem during the late nineteenth century. By 1900, one in 200 Americans was addicted to opiates or cocaine. Many wounded Civil War veterans returned home addicted to morphine, a pain-killing opiate. The typical user became addicted during medical treatment. By the end of the nineteenth century, opiates could be legally purchased at corner drugstores. Laudanum, a form of opium, cost 28 cents for a three-ounce bottle from Sears, Roebuck.
In 1885, cocaine was introduced as an elixir for every ailment from depression to hay fever. A label instructed users: "For catarrh and all head disease, snuff very little up the nose 5 times a day until cured...." Advertisements urged mothers to give cranky children a dose of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, which was laced with morphine."
The two sites above are good for some opio history...some articles contain bias on both sides but such is life right...either way history is interesting.