Heroin
Heroin chic was a really big thing in the 90s. It was glamourized by many beautiful celebrities, and despite the fact that everyone knew what kind of special hell heroin addiction is, people were still drawn to this particular drug. In the film Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace, mistaking some heroin for cocaine, snorts a line of the drug and goes into cardiac arrest. She only survives because Vincent Vega slams pure adrenalin into her heart, then takes her home to her posh mansion where she presumably lives happily ever after.
If you Google “heroin” and read the news articles, there is nothing to see but tragedy. There are so many horrifying accounts on how people are still addicted and how many people have died due to this drug that can take you high up into the sky and bring you crashing down. Like so many opiates, this one gets you hooked as the effects get shorter and shorter and will make you crave for more until you take so much you die of an overdose.
The way heroin is portrayed in the media is confusing to the point of schizophrenia. On one hand, the waif look with the dark circles underneath a disaffected gaze is shown to be sexy, but on the other hand, heroin is demonized in the news, showing ugly pictures of people robbing their loved ones and performing sexual acts just to get their fix. It’s an odd mixed signal that continually confuses people into thinking that it’s bad, but maybe they can stay ahead of the drug—and that’s how people usually fall into its abuse.
First made in 1974 from morphine which was made from opium, heroin was called diamorphine until it was resynthesized twenty-three years later by a chemist working for the pharmaceutical giant Bayer that eventually commercialized it. The word heroin was based on the German word heriosch which means “heroic” or “strong.” Between 1898 through to 1910, heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant.
There is a sad bit of irony here, as history is unfortunately repeating itself. A huge pharmaceutical company has discovered a “wonder cure” to help with simple daily maladies while its long-term effects are debilitating due to the new drug’s addictive nature. People still pop the pills like candy because it is legal. Heroin in the early twentieth century, Oxycodone tomorrow. The thought should be enough to make a person research the effects and studies of any cure that is driven by advertising.
Heroin was legal until it was banned in 1924 and was then made into a schedule 1 substance, which makes it illegal for non-medical use. The world turns, and what you initially thought was good for you might actually be bad. Heroin, in whatever way it is portrayed by the media, is a warning. Don’t take things at face value, study up on what you are prescribed, and think. Because one day that little pill you are taking might just become something that can fuel a billion-dollar drug industry just like heroin.
Reference
Wikipedia. 2016. “Heroin.” Last modified November 21. Accessed November 24, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#...
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