Culture - When Heroin was legal

[Figaro]

When heroin was legal

By Jonathan Duffy
BBC News Magazine




As recently as the 1950s, heroin was a popular medicine prescribed by family doctors. But growing fears about the drug's addictiveness led to the start of it becoming criminalised, 50 years ago this week.
"The Case for Heroin" - so ran the headline for the Times leader column of Tuesday, 14 June 1955.
In the course of a short, lucid article the newspaper which had long been the mouthpiece of Establishment Britain set out its argument in favour of heroin.
In the context of all that has happened since, from heroin's link with violent crime to the transfer of HIV among users who share needles, as well as countless other social ills, such an article today would seem unthinkable in all but the most libertarian of newspapers.
HEROIN CLAMPDOWN
Globally, the clampdown of heroin was in full swing by the mid 1950s
In 1956 the US made the supply of heroin to a minor a capital offence
UK one of the few countries where diamorphine (heroin) still available on prescription
It is still prescribed to about 1% (about 500 people) of addicts as treatment
Macfarlan Smith is the only legal producer in the UK

(Source: Dr Tom Carnwath)

But in mid-1950s Britain, the spectre of drug addiction was a long way from the top of the public's concerns.
In fact, as the Times editorial states, in 1955 there were only 317 addicts to "manufactured" drugs in the whole of Britain, of which just 15% were dependent on heroin. That's a national total of 47.5 heroin addicts. History, regrettably, does not record the precise circumstances of the half-addict.
By contrast, in the US, where heroin was outlawed in 1925, it was said to be a "major social problem".
But who were this handful of heroin addicts?
According to Dr James Mills, a historian who has traced drug use through the 20th century, they tended to be doctors or middle-class patients who could afford to sustain a habit.
"In the 1930s, it was really the well-to-do crowd. The working classes might have a bit of heroin in the medicine prescribed to them but it wouldn't be enough to form a dependency," says Dr Mills.
Clearly, the fact heroin was legal and widely prescribed for common ailments such as coughs, colds and diarrhoea, as well as a pain killer, had not led to the sort of widespread dependency that opponents of legalisation fear it would do if legalised today.
In fact, heroin's emergence on to the medical stage was so low-key it effectively sat on the shelf for 20 years. First synthesised in 1874 by an English chemist, from morphine (an opiate) and acetic anhydride, and medically known as diacetylmorphine, it was picked up by the German drugs firm Bayer in 1898.
The name heroin probably derives from the German word heroisch, which means powerful. And it certainly was, with tests proving it was up to eight times stronger a painkiller than morphine.
Bad reputation
During the 19th Century, opiates had become a valuable commodity for British-run India, where they were grown and sold to China, which was home to millions of opium addicts. Although this trade began to decline in the early 20th century, the rise of opiate-based medicines was encouraged by the British.
Jazz greats had known habits

But in the US it was already starting to get a bad reputation as an addictive drug that could produce intense euphoria. The Americans set about banning this dangerous new narcotic and put pressure on other countries to do the same.
In the UK, however, there was great resistance from medics who celebrated heroin's analgesic qualities. Nevertheless, the Home Office set up a drugs branch and began keeping tabs on the small number of heroin abusers.
In the 1930s, this amounted to little more than "one very small circle of heroin addicts", according to Henry "Bing" Spear, who became the government's anti-drug enforcement chief.
According to Spear, the group's three leaders had picked up their habit in mainland Europe and returned there to restock with heroin.
Selling brown
"They met at chemists and doctors' surgeries," according to Richard Davenport-Hines, in his book The Pursuit of Oblivion. "There was a bit of borrowing and lending but no evidence of widespread selling."
Photos of addict Rachel's body were used in an anti-heroin campaign

"The police had a very tight rein on what was going on. The Home Office kept a register of addicts and there was never more than 500 at one time," says Dr James Mills.
After WWII, the illegal drugs scene began to take off in the UK, but was mainly confined to cannabis. In US, however, heroin, despite being illegal, was finding its way into the bohemian jazz scene. Musicians such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday all had documented habits.
Britain was tame by comparison, says be-bop trumpeter Dizzy Reece, who came to London in 1948, aged 17.
"You never saw [heroin] in the clubs. Sure, some people were taking it but it was in private, at their house," says Reece, speaking from his home in New York.
"But I do remember people queuing up outside Boots chemist in Piccadilly Circus at midnight to get their heroin pills, on prescription. They called them 'jacks' - heroin pills."
What illegal activity there was, was pounced on by the police who launched a sting in September 1951, after hearing that a man named "Mark" was selling "white drugs" in London's West End. The man - real name Kevin Patrick Saunders - was arrested and found to have supplied heroin to 14 people.
By the mid 50s, international pressure was growing on the Eden government to ban heroin manufacture, imports and exports. And despite committing to such action in 1955, it retreated from the ban on manufacturing in response to doctors' protests, and, perhaps, the Times's leader column.