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Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the dried latex of the Papaver somniferum plant; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical-grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brown powders sold illegally around the world as heroin are routinely diluted with cutting agents. Black tar heroin is a variable admixture of morphine derivatives—predominantly 6-MAM (6-monoacetylmorphine), which is the result of crude acetylation during clandestine production of street heroin. Heroin is used medically in several countries to relieve pain, such as during childbirth or a heart attack, as well as in opioid replacement therapy.
The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was a United States federal law that regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products. The act was proposed by Representative Francis Burton Harrison of New York and was approved on December 17, 1914.
Opium is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies.
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight. Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy in alcohol (ethanol).
Harm reduction, or harm minimization, refers to a range of intentional practices and public health policies designed to lessen the negative social and/or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal. Harm reduction is used to decrease negative consequences of recreational drug use and sexual activity without requiring abstinence, recognizing that those unable or unwilling to stop can still make positive change to protect themselves and others.
Substance dependence, also known as drug dependence, is a biopsychological situation whereby an individual's functionality is dependent on the necessitated re-consumption of a psychoactive substance because of an adaptive state that has developed within the individual from psychoactive substance consumption that results in the experience of withdrawal and that necessitates the re-consumption of the drug. A drug addiction, a distinct concept from substance dependence, is defined as compulsive, out-of-control drug use, despite negative consequences. An addictive drug is a drug which is both rewarding and reinforcing. ΔFosB, a gene transcription factor, is now known to be a critical component and common factor in the development of virtually all forms of behavioral and drug addictions, but not dependence.
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The Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons (SUSMP), also known as the Poisons Standard for short, is an Australian legislative instrument produced by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Before 2010, it was known as the Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons (SUSDP). The SUSMP classifies drugs and poisons into different Schedules signifying the degree of control recommended to be exercised over their availability to the public. As of 2024, the most recent version is the Therapeutic Goods Instrument 2024.
The United Kingdom Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 aimed to control the possession and supply of numerous listed drugs and drug-like substances as a controlled substance. The act allowed and regulated the use of some Controlled Drugs by various classes of persons acting in their professional capacity.
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Heroin-assisted treatment (HAT), or diamorphine-assisted treatment, refers to a type of Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) where semi-synthetic heroin is prescribed to opiate addicts who do not benefit from, or cannot tolerate, treatment with one of the established drugs used in opiate replacement therapy such as methadone or buprenorphine. For this group of patients, heroin-assisted treatment has proven superior in improving their social and health situation. Heroin-assisted treatment is fully a part of the national health system in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, and Denmark. Additional trials are being carried out in the United Kingdom, Norway, and Belgium.
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws developed the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act in 1934 due to the lack of restrictions in the Harrison Act of 1914. The Harrison Act was a revenue-producing act and, while it provided penalties for violations, it did not give authority to the states to exercise police power regarding either seizure of drugs used in illicit trade or punishment of those responsible.
Drugs considered addictive or dangerous in the United Kingdom are called "controlled substances" and regulated by law. Until 1964 the medical treatment of dependent drug users was separated from the punishment of unregulated use and supply. Under this policy drug use remained low; there was relatively little recreational use and few dependent users, who were prescribed drugs by their doctors as part of their treatment. From 1964 drug use was decreasingly criminalised, with the framework still in place as of 2014 largely determined by the Misuse of Drugs Act.
The Interdepartmental Committee on Drug Addiction, commonly called the Brain Committee after its chairman Sir Russell Brain, was created by the Home Office in 1958 to consider issues related to drugs and drug addiction in the United Kingdom. The committee explored whether or not certain drugs should be considered addictive or habit-forming; examined whether there was a medical need to provide special, including institutional, treatment outside the resources already available, for persons addicted to drugs; and made recommendations, including proposals for administrative measures, to the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 is an UK act of Parliament which changed drug addiction, which up to then was treated within the medical profession as a disease, into a penal offence. The former was the view held by the then Assistant Under Secretary of State, Malcolm Delevingne.
The Dangerous Drugs Regulations 1968 determined the consultants who could prescribe, or treat addicts either in psychiatric hospitals or drug dependency units. Other medical staff, if supervised by the consultants within the hospitals, would also be able to obtain licences. Doctors working outside the NHS would be considered if their organisations had similar facilities to the DDUs.
Martin T. Schechter is a Canadian epidemiologist recognized for contributions to research about HIV prevention and treatments, addiction research, and Indigenous health research. He is a professor and was the founding director of the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Schechter received his Order of British Columbia in 1994 alongside BC's first Nobel Prize laureate Michael Smith and noted Indigenous artist Bill Reid. In 2022, Schechter was named as a Member of the Order of Canada.
There is an ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States, originating out of both medical prescriptions and illegal sources. The epidemic began in the United States in the late 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), when opioids were increasingly prescribed for pain management, resulting in a rise in overall opioid use throughout subsequent years.
The Boylan Act was a piece of April 1914 legislation in New York State, dealing with narcotics and addiction. The Act predated the federal 1915 Harrison Act, and in some ways anticipated it. Charles B. Towns, one of the sponsors of the Act, stated "it takes only five or six days to cure a drug fiend in hospital."
The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in the overuse, misuse/abuse, and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs called opiates/opioids since the 1990s. It includes the significant medical, social, psychological, demographic and economic consequences of the medical, non-medical, and recreational abuse of these medications.
References
- ↑ Heroin addiction care and control: the British System, HB Spear, page 30, para 4
- ↑ "The Appointment of the Rolleston Committee". The Shipman Inquiry - Fourth Report - The Rolleston Report 1926. Archived from the original on 9 August 2009.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ↑ Transform Drug Policy Foundation. "A history of drug prohibition and a prediction for its abolition and replacement". Archived from the original on 7 July 2012.
{{cite web}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ↑ The Rolleston Report, Conclusions and Recommendations: The circumstances in which morphine and heroin may legitimately be administered to addicts, para 8
- ↑ Mars, Sarah (February 2003). "Heroin Addiction Care and Control: the British System 1916 to 1984". Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 96 (2): 99–100. doi:10.1177/014107680309600215. PMC 539406 .
Persons for whom, after every effort has been made for the cure of the addiction, the drug cannot be completely withdrawn, either because:-
i. Complete withdrawal produces serious symptoms which cannot be satisfactorily treated under the ordinary condition of private practice; or
ii. The patient, while capable of leading a useful and fairly normal life so long as he takes a certain non-progressive quantity, usually small, of the drug of addiction, ceases to be able to do so when the regular allowance is withdrawn. - ↑ "Rolleston Report of 1926 (U.K.)". Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol, and Addictive Behavior. Archived from the original on 20 March 2011.
- ↑ The Shipman Inquiry: the regulation of controlled drugs in the community. fourth report. The Stationery Office. 1 January 2004. p. 46. ISBN 9780101624923 . Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- 1 2 "Departmental Committee on Morphine and Heroin Addiction (Rolleston) 1926, Minute of Appointment of the Committee" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 September 2013.
- ↑ THE BRITISH EXPERIENCE WITH HEROIN REGULATION, TREVOR BENNETT, Senior Research Associate, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge, England, 1988