From Legal to Illegal and Back Again: A History of Three Reclassified Drugs

Cannabis, Cocaine, and Heroin: A Brief History of Illicit Drugs

Cannabis, religion and racism

Cannabis plants originated in central Asia, spread to North Africa, and then to the Americas. People grew cannabis for its hemp fibre used to make ropes and sacks. But it also had other properties. Like many other ancient medical discoveries, it all started with religion.

Cannabis is mentioned in the Hindu texts known as the Vedas (1700-1100 BCE) as a sacred, feel-good plant. Cannabis or bhang is still used ritually in India today during festivals such as Shivratri and Holi.

From the late 1700s, the British in India started taxing cannabis products. They also noticed a high rate of “Indian hemp insanity” – including what we’d now recognise as psychosis – in the colony. By the late 1800s, a British government investigation found only heavy cannabis use seemed to affect people’s mental health.

In the 1880s, cannabis was used therapeutically in the United States to treat tetanus, migraine and “insane delirium”. But not everyone agreed on (or even knew) the best dose. Local producers simply mixed up what they had into a tincture – soaking cannabis leaves and buds in alcohol to extract essential oils – and hoped for the best.

So how did cannabis go from a slightly useless legal drug to a social menace?

Some of it was from genuine health concerns about what was added to people’s food, drink and medicine.

In 1908 in Australia, New South Wales listed cannabis as an ingredient that could “adulterate” food and drink (along with opium, cocaine and chloroform). To sell the product legally, you had to tell the customers it contained cannabis.

Some of it was international politics. Moves to control cannabis use began in 1912 with the world’s first treaty against drug trafficking. The US and Italy both wanted cannabis included, but this didn’t happen until 1925.

Some of it was racism. The word marijuana is Spanish for cannabis (later Anglicised to marijuana) and the drug became associated with poor migrants. In 1915, El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border, was the first US municipality to ban the non-medical cannabis trade.

Cocaine, addiction, and the 1980s

Cocaine use is now associated with physical and mental harms. In the short and long term, it can cause problems with your heart and blood pressure and cause organ damage. At its worst, it can kill you. Right now, illegal cocaine production and use is also surging across the globe.

But cocaine was always legal for medical and surgical use, most commonly in the form of cocaine hydrochloride. As well as acting as a painkiller, it’s a vasoconstrictor – it tightens blood vessels and reduces bleeding. So it’s still used in some types of surgery.

Heroin, coughing, and overdoses

Opium has been used for pain relief ever since people worked out how to harvest the sap of the opium poppy. By the 19th century, addictive and potentially lethal opium-based products such as laudanum were widely available across the United Kingdom, Europe, and the US. Opium addiction was also a real problem.

Because of this, scientists were looking for safe and effective alternatives for pain relief and to help people cure their addictions.

In 1874, English chemist Charles Romley Alder Wright created diacetylmorphine (also known as diamorphine). Drug firm Bayer thought it might be useful in cough medicines gave it the brand name Heroin and put it on the market in 1898. It made chest infections worse.