A LITTLE HISTORY

Many scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, socio-pathologists, and jurists, who study the phenomenon of drug addiction and various narcotic drinks, emphasize that prehistoric people (before the Modern Era) were also knowledgeable about narcotic substances, whether natural or synthetic. From examples of ancient paintings discovered in the caves of Southern France and Northern Spain, conclusions are drawn that humanity even in those times used various plants during the development of different rituals and magics, while the illicit trade of narcotic drinks has its beginnings with the existence of human society.

The oldest known use of drugs is thought to be around 5000 years before our era. The Sumerians, an ancient population that lived in Mesopotamia, around the Persian Gulf, used opium to achieve the effect "hul" which means pleasure, while in ancient Greece, the juice of opium was used.

Traces of the use of hallucinogenic plants go so far back in prehistoric times that some authors estimate that the idea of God would have appeared to people after an experience with hallucinations.

Data discovered in the ruins of ancient cities show that people experimented with cannabis at least from the third millennium before the Modern Era for recreation, spirituality, and medicine.

Herodotus, an important Greek historian of the 5th century before the Modern Era, describes how the Scythians of the Middle East used cannabis in steam baths.

There are writings that show that the ancient peoples of South America, the Aztecs and Incas, around the year 1800 BC, had knowledge of drugs. They used them in their religious ceremonies. Those drugs were as means for inducing hallucinations which they honored as something supernatural. Later, plantation workers in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, etc., used the leaves of the Coca plant (Erythroxylon coca - a plant used for the production of cocaine); they chewed them and this made them feel less tired during work.

In some texts known as Pen Tsao in China, Vedas in India, Papyri in Egypt, Bible, Quran, as well as Zend Avesta of the Persians, which talk about various scientific works of ancient times, in their descriptions by scientists of that time, it is also mentioned that various narcotic drinks have been known within a certain circle of people who often used them, for a certain and short period of time, to free themselves from some concern and to shift from the real world to the world of imagination. The most common reasons for this were not for pleasure, but were various difficulties, diseases, fears, etc.

Also, around the year 1000 of our era, opium was used in China and the Orient.

In the 13th century, crusaders, after returning from the Far East, brought hashish and opium to Europe, but the use of narcotics here began at the beginning of the 20th century.

Due to interests in the opium trade, two opium wars occurred, one between England and China (1840-1842) and the other between England and France. So, one on the side of China and the other against it. The Chinese government at that time strictly condemned the importation and use of opium produced, mainly in India, since its consumption led to the death of the Chinese emperor's child, reacting with a war which China lost. After the loss, the Chinese government was forced to make concessions and compromises to its detriment, granting foreign companies many privileges.

After World War I, the disease of addiction, the use of narcotics, spread widely. In France, in 1920, there were 80 thousand people addicted to morphine and cocaine, which means that the illegal trade of these narcotics expanded and spread greatly. In 1949, in China, tens of millions of people suffered from the disease of addiction (drug addiction), as a result of consuming various narcotic drinks, in different and uncontrolled forms. At that time, raw opium mainly reached Europe from the Far East and mainly from Turkey and partly from the illegal market of former Yugoslavia.

Chemical analyses of opium, in the 19th century, reveal that most of its use can be summarized in two alkaloids, codeine and morphine.

Diacetylmorphine was synthesized for the first time in the year 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, an English chemist working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London. He experimented with combining morphine with different acids. He reacted the alkaloid anhydride of morphine with acetic anhydride for several hours and produced a more potent form of morphine acetate, now called diacetylmorphine.

23 years later, diacetylmorphine was independently resynthesized by another chemist, Felix Hoffmann. Hoffmann, working at Aktiengesellschaft Farbenfabriken (today the pharmaceutical company Bayer) in Elberfeld, Germany, was instructed by his supervisor Heinrich Dreser to acetylenate morphine with the objective to produce codeine. Instead, the experiment produced a form of acetylated morphine 1.5 to 2 times more potent than morphine itself.

From 1898 to 1910, diacetylmorphine was marketed under the name heroin, as a non-addictive substitute for morphine and as a cough suppressant.

In the USA, the Narcotic Tax Act of 1914, placed control on the sale and distribution of heroin and other opiates, which allowed the drug to be recommended and sold for medical purposes.

In 1924, the US Congress banned the sale, importation, or production of heroin. This drug is now on Schedule I of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 by the United Nations, making it illegal for non-medical uses.

The status of cannabis has changed in recent years. In 1937, the USA outlawed cannabis for possible reasons related to racism and/or industrial economic interests. In the 2000s, a large number of states have outlawed the cultivation, consumption, and trade of cannabis with penalties ranging from lighter to imprisonment.

Before 1906, the essence of cocaine was isolated as a spice and was used in various drinks. Also, it was used:

• In religious ceremonies;
• As a pain reliever for wounds received during battles;
• To provide strength in the battles of war;
• To give powers during the climbing of heights.

After the 1900s, people considered it harmful, identifying it as a drug.

Pure cocaine was first used in 1880 as a local anesthetic in operations on the eye, nose, and throat due to its ability to provide anesthesia, as well as to constrict blood vessels and limit bleeding. Many of its therapeutic applications are now obsolete due to the development of safer drugs.

About 100 years after cocaine came into use, a new variant of the substance, crack, became very popular in the mid-1980s, due to its high effect and the fact that it was inexpensive to produce and buy.

Cocaine is a crystalline substance that dissolves with difficulty in water. Crystalline powder without smell, colorless, with a bitter taste. It is a very poisonous drug that causes addiction in the user and is part of illegal drugs. Addiction is mainly psychological, but in some cases also physical dependency.

Crack is a powder of cocaine hydrochloride that is processed into crystal chunks.

Over time, the industry of plant processing and chemical industry unfortunately perfected the “drug industry”. Even though the cultivation of plants from which drug types are obtained is legally prohibited, there still exist many illegal “factories” for the production of dangerous drugs.