Heroin Cough Syrup: A Brand Name Gone Wrong

Some Heroin Will Fix You Right Up

"In 1874, German scientists developed a formula for a painkiller that they thought would be less addictive than morphine. They simply added two acetyls to morphine to synthesize diacetylmorphine. Heinrich Dreser, the head of Bayer drug development tried it on animals and humans. He, also, tried it on himself, which may have been the problem. He was very pleased with the results and decided it was a good treatment for many ailments especially respiratory ones like bronchitis, asthma and tuberculosis.

"The Bayer company started marketing Heroin in 1898. They derived the name from the German word heroisch. Often, they would place it in ads along with their Bayer aspirin advertising the merits of their new cough syrup, "Heroin- the sedative for coughs."

"Bayer gave out free samples of Heroin to doctors. The doctors prescribed it to their patients. Heroin quickly gained widespread acceptance in the medical community unaware of its addictive qualities. Bayer was soon enthusiastically selling it in dozens of countries.

"Something odd happened. The doctors began noticing an inordinate demand by their patients, who did not really seem to be in respiratory distress, for Heroin cough syrup.

"The scientists thought that Heroin was not as addictive as morphine, but it turned out to be two to three times more addictive. It was already metabolized and would go straight into the blood stream and immediately cross the blood-brain barrier causing immediate euphoria.

"Bayer stopped producing and selling Heroin in 1913 and deleted mention of it in their official company history. Heroin was outlawed in 1924."

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