What Did Bayer Have in Common with Street Drug Dealers?

Are there significant differences between those who illegally sell dangerous street drugs and the more “prestigious,” legal pharmaceutical industry? Of course there are. But the first major international pharmaceutical company and the street drug industry share a commonality: heroin.

On Sept. 13, 1998, British newspaper The Sunday Times marked the 100th anniversary of the commercial launch of heroin by publishing a historical summary about the company that owned the drug’s brand name, Bayer Pharmaceutical Products.

According to the Times, Bayer chemist Heinrich Dreser first tested the drug in animals and then on humans (himself included) in 1898. As the article states, “the workers loved it, some saying it made them feel ‘heroic’ (heroisch).” From this description, a brand name was born.

In November 1898, Dreser first presented Heroin at a medical meeting. The new drug was thought to work better than morphine while at the same time being safe and not addictive. Given these comforting properties, Heroin was promoted as an ideal cough suppressant in the face of the rampant tuberculosis and pneumonia of the time.

Not surprisingly, Heroin was extraordinarily successful. According to the Times, Bayer sent out free samples to thousands of European and U.S. physicians. A year after Dreser’s presentation, Bayer’s production of the drug was up to roughly 1 ton per year, with exports going to 23 countries. The article cites special popularity in the U.S., “where there was already a large population of morphine addicts, a craze for patent medicines, and a relatively lax regulatory framework.”

By 1902, Heroin sales represented about 5 percent of Bayer’s total net profits. According to the Times:

Between 1899 and 1905, at least 180 clinical works on heroin were published around the world, and most were favourable, if cautious. In 1906, the American Medical Association approved heroin for medical use, though with strong reservations about a ‘habit’ that was ‘readily formed.’

In 1913, the large number of heroin-related admissions into U.S. hospitals in major cities presumably contributed to Bayer’s decision to stop making the drug. A burgeoning population of recreational users had emerged, some of them supporting their drug habit through the sale of scrap metal, thus earning the nickname “junkie.” Soon after, in 1914, a prescription was required to obtain the drug in the U.S., and in 1924, its manufacture and use was completely banned in this country.

Has anything like this happened since? More recent examples of the pharmaceutical industry’s role in drugs that wind up on the streets would have to include Purdue’s powerful narcotic Oxycontin. More about that another time.