The history of heroin dates back as far or farther than the ancient Egyptians. Records indicate that opium was used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. The poppy even appears on Egyptian art dating back 6,000 years. Opium was imported to China around 800 A.D. By the 1600s, opium smoking was widespread throughout China. In 1680, a famous English physician named Thomas Syndenham introduced opium to the medical field.
Data has shown that people high on marijuana show the same lack of coordination on standard "drunk driver" tests as do people who have had to much to drink.
Abrupt interruption of chronic methamphetamine use results in the withdrawal syndrome in almost 90% of the cases. Withdrawal of amphetamine often causes a depression which is longer and deeper than even the depression from cocaine withdrawal.
From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant. Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction before it was discovered that heroin is rapidly metabolized into morphine, and as such, "heroin" was basically only a quicker acting form of morphine. The company was somewhat embarrassed by this new finding and it became a historical blunder for Bayer.
