Narcotics entered the United States long before it became a republic.1853 hypodermic needle invented in Scotland
Injection thought nonaddictive because it bypasses the stomach and not create an appetite. Patients were encouraged to buy the new device D I YLate 1800s: increased volume and addiction
Ads promoted patent medicines containing narcotics. Users became dependent, later learn of and use the specific narcotic ingredient. Pure Food & Drug Act 1906 help relieve this particular situation.Narcotics cause respiratory failure, depressed breathing. The brain's respiratory center is less sensitive to stimulus of CO2 or hydrogen ions. Narcotics give the elderly low blood pressure. Circulatory depression is hardly noticeable. Addiction is physical dependance, withdrawal symptoms if drug not taken on schedule. Health-care access makes narcotics addiction an occupational hazard.
OPIUM
Egypt knew opium in 6300 BC. Mesopotamia chewed poppies in 5000 - 4000 BC for "aches and pains." Greeks used opium for common illnesses. Hippocrates in 400 BC used opium. The word opium is from the Greek word opos, sap. The poppy's Latin name means "poppy that brings sleep." Rome learned of opium through Eastern Mediterranean conquests. Islamic civilization preserved medical arts after Rome fell, exchanging knowledge with Persia, India and China. Arab traders arrived in China in the 600s and spread opium to Europe by the 1400s. Laudanum appeared in the 1500s as a modern tincture of opium. In the early 1700s anti-diarrhetic Paregoric combined camphor and tincture of opium. In the 1700s Indian ships brought tons of opium to Western Europe.
China used opiates for dysentery, a major health problem there for many years. By the 1700s millions of Chinese were addicted. 1729 saw the first alarms of improper opium use. Emperor Yung Cheng passed the first anti-opium edict: users were sentenced to death. Later emperors issuing edicts couldn't enforce them and were ignored. Importing opium into China was big business, siphoning off much of China's GNP. Opium addiction was widespread. 1800s China's Manchu Dynasty discouraged opium import and use in China. Opium use was ingrained in Chinese society for over 1000 years. Britain's monopoly of opium to China earned money on sales. 1839 the Emperor appointed Commissioner Lin to Canton. Lin demanded surrender of all opium stored in Western ships to be held in warehouses according to Chinese law. To insure compliance he detained all westerners in Canton until the opium was surrendered. March 1839 Chinese leaders destroyed 20,000 chests of opium brought in by British traders, starting the first of two opium wars in 1839 and 1856.
Reduced opium profits increased tension between China and the West, particularly England. Drunken sailors killed a Chinese citizen in a brawl. China demanded the surrender of sailors involved. The British refused, touching off the first Opium War 1839 - 1842. Britain defeated China in the Opium Wars, guaranteeing their right to sell opium in China. Opium import resumed and China's domestic opium production increased. English women's and church groups and American missionaries to China protested England's importing opium to China. The 1900s saw decreased opium use in China. Opium was brought to the United States in the 1850s and 1860s by Chinese railroad workers in California. By the 1890s opium became an American habit too.
Few painkillers existed before the 1800s. Doctors, unaware of opium's addictive qualities, had little concern for opium abuse. Opiates, legal in the 1800s, were grown at home. Before the 1900s opium was included in potent medicines without warning labels. In the mid to late 1800s opium was equated with undesireables. In 1900 opium use became an international problem, its use by affluent classes overlooked thinking of opium use as concentrated among the poor. When opium use was recognized in the upper socioeconomic classes it became a mental health problem. In 1909 the United States' first opium law was passed. Illegal trade to avoid tariff produced gangsterism.
Opium occurs as dark brown chunks or as white to dark brown powder. Opium overdosing causes death by respiratory depression.
MORPHINE
Discovered in 1803, morphine alters moods according to the user's personality. Morphine was given to Civil War soldiers for wounds and sickness. Morphinism - morphine addiction - was called the soldier's disease.
INHALANTS
Inhalants include household solvents. Inhalants are an anesthetic. Inhalant overdose causes sudden death. One month of inhalant use causes permanent brain and central nervous system damage. Long term inhalant use causes memory loss and impairs ability to read, write or do arithmetic. Inhalant use has the same symptoms as alcohol. Dizziness from fumes (also from depressant psychiatric drugs such as barbituates - the same drugs used in executions) is from hypoxia - oxygen starvation - causing death by suffocation.
BARBITURATES
Barbituates were discovered shortly after the Civil War and saw 20th century use as a painkiller. Barbiturates produce abnormal sleep, including non-REM (dreamless) sleep. Symptoms include stupor, slurred speech, loss of equilibrium. Use leads to depressed respiratory function, heart failure, pneumonia, convulsions.
QUAALUDES
Quaaludes, designed for malaria, were introduced as a safe, nonaddictive sleeping aid for anxious, stressed people sleeping poorly. Quaaludes weren't supposed to have negative side effects of sleeping pills then available. 1960s counterculture brought the quaalude culture among college students and celebrities. Like marijuana, Quaaludes were a movement drug. "Mother's little helpers" were popular with women coping with helplessness and boredom of the time. Quaaludes, reclassified as a controlled substance in the U S, were smuggled. Quaaludes, legally obtained only by prescription, led to Quaalude doctors who, while not respected, made money prescribing Quaaludes to anyone wanting them. Quaaludes, a depressant, have much the same effects as alcohol. Counterfeit Quaaludes are often poor quality.
DEPRESSANTS
Depressants can be fatal if used with alcohol.