Nancy Reagan -- RIP

Codeine was isolated in 1832 by Pierre Jean Robiquet.

Laudanum became the basis of many popular patent medicines of the 19th century.

Heroin, the first semi-synthetic opioid, was first synthesized in 1874, but was not pursued until its rediscovery in 1897 by Felix Hoffmann at the Bayer pharmaceutical company in Elberfeld, Germany.Bayer trademarked "heroin" and marketed it as a cough suppressant and non-addictive substitute for morphine from 1898 to 1910.

Amendments to the California Pharmacy and Poison Act in 1907 made it a crime to sell opiates without a prescription, and bans on possession of opium or opium pipes in 1909 were enacted.

Oxycodone, a thebaine derivative similar to codeine, was introduced by Bayer in 1916 and promoted as a less-addictive analgesic.

Worldwide production of heroin in 2006 was 6610 metric tons—about one-fifth the level of production in 1906.

Quote: AZDuffman

In the early 1900s you could buy medicine with cocaine, heroin, or morphine right at the local drug store with a Coca-Cola, which BTW had trace cocaine in it, though more from bad processing than as an ingredient.

I asked about this at the Coca Cola museum in Atlanta and the tour guide was quite livid in his denial of it. However, Snopes backs up what you wrote.

You can still buy medicines with cocaine in them. Many topical anesthetics contain synthetic forms of cocaine. So do many local anesthetics. You just can't get high using them.

Quote: Nareed

You just can't get high using them.

That's no fun.

Quote: Pacomartin

Worldwide production of heroin in 2006 was 6610 metric tons—about one-fifth the level of production in 1906.

That number isn't surprising.

"In 1900 there were far more people addicted to drugs in this country than there are today. Depending upon whose judgment, or whose assessment you accept, there were between two and five percent of the entire adult population of the United States addicted to drugs in 1900."

Doctors would treat people in hospital with
morphine and make addicts out of them.
Thousands of immigrants from EU were
already addicted when they got here. But
the biggest demo of addicts by far were
middle aged white women. They got hooked
on the morphine in patent medicines.

The good ones were 50% morphine and they
did work like a miracle drug, just like the
salesman said. No matter what was wrong with
you, even if you were dying from something,
morphine always made you feel better. The
reason more Blacks weren't addicted was they
couldn't afford the medicine on a regular basis.

If you saw the series Deadwood, there was a woman
addicted to Laudanum. "A Long Day's Journey Into Night"
was a movie with Katherine Hepburn, who was
addicted to patent medicines.