Heroin Use For Coughs and Other Ailments
- Time Period: 1898 to 1924
Heroin is a well-known street drug today but it used to be offered as an over-the-counter drug to help people with various ailments. Formed by the Bayer company, yes THAT Bayer company, they marketed it as a substitute for morphine and the highly abused opium. Heroin is kind of morphine, but it’s more like a cousin to it. For years, places like Canada used to use it in hospitals over morphine. Scientifically, it is referred to not as Heroin but diacetylmorphine or diamorphine.
Bayer claimed it was “non-addictive” and “safe for children.” Since it was virtually the same stuff as the very thing it was marketed not to be, the drug was taken off the market by the American government in 1924. Beforehand, Heroin was marketed as a drug to help with things like coughs. It never treated or assisted with cough issues but due to the chest pain coughs can cause, it likely could help with that. Old medical treatments like this lasted for a very short timeframe compared to other stuff.