Heroin and morphine belong to a group of drugs called opiates. Opiates are derived from the opium poppy. Morphine was first identified as a painkiller in 1806. The problem with morphine was that people who took it often became addicted to it. They also...

A semi-synthetic opiate made by adding two acetyl groups to the MORPHINE molecule (see OPIATES). It was first made and promoted by Bayer Laboratories (the same company that makes Bayer aspirin) in 1898. It originally was marketed as a non-addictive...

In 1868, Alexander Crum Brown (1838-1922), professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and Thomas Fraser (1841-1920) examined quaternary ammonium salts of various alkaloids (organic compounds) and found that they, unlike the...

During the nearly three decades that heroin was legal, hundreds of thousands of Americans from all walks of life who used the drug for pain relief and other medicinal purposes developed addictions to it. By the time the drug was made illegal in 1924,...

Data from The Lancet shows Heroin to be the most dependence causing and most harmful of 20 drugs. Heroin (INN: diacetylmorphine, BAN: diamorphine) is a semi-synthetic opioid synthesized from morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy. It is the 3,...

Okay, picture this; you are scooping ice cream at your neighborhood Long Island Cold Stone Creamery and a TV crew busts in to tell you that you've got the lead in the star-packed new musical movie Hairspray! Not gonna happen?  That's what 18-year-old, cute, brown-eyed...

An illegal lab in Mexico produced some of the powerful painkiller that killed dozens of people in Chicago last year who ingested with heroin, according to newly unsealed indictments.Two drug conspiracy indictments unsealed Thursday name 13 people in Mexico and seven members of Chicago's Mickey...

Massachusetts officials next month will begin distributing kits to heroin addicts that include medication to treat overdoses.Advocates say the kits will help treat overdoses quickly, safely and without fear of addiction, and will be beneficial in a state where more people die from heroin than...

More than three dozen people have been arrested in connection with a ring suspected of smuggling $35 million in Colombian heroin to New York and New Jersey through Mexico.Federal prosecutors in San Diego unsealed 10 indictments Wednesday, charging 44 people with a variety of drug...

A man retrieved a package of white powder from his back pocket, removed a small quantity of it with the edge of his pocket knife, placed it on a pocket mirror, and began sniffing it. He had done this many times before in the restroom at his workplace,...