What Is Heroin Made From? Ingredients, Cutting Agents & Adulterants

Heroin is an opioid drug made from morphine, a natural substance taken from the seed pod of the various opium poppy plants grown in Southeast and Southwest Asia, Mexico, and Colombia. Heroin can be a white or brown powder, or a black sticky substance known as black tar heroin. Learn about the health effects of heroin and read the Research Report. In 1994, Switzerland began a trial diamorphine maintenance program for users that had failed multiple withdrawal programs. The aim of this program was to maintain the health of the user by avoiding medical problems stemming from the illicit use of diamorphine. The first trial in 1994 involved 340 users, although enrollment was later expanded to 1000, based on the apparent success of the program.

1. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin.
2. Two other 3,6 diesters of morphine invented in 1874–75 along with diamorphine, dibenzoylmorphine and acetylpropionylmorphine, were made as substitutes after it was outlawed in 1925 and, therefore, sold as the first “designer drugs” until they were outlawed by the League of Nations in 1930.
3. Most of the heroin that comes into the United States is smuggled in through the US-Mexico border, with major entry points being California, Texas, and Arizona.
4. According to two synthetic drug traffickers interviewed in the state of Michoacán, some producers choose quantity over quality by mixing in sodium hydroxide, gasoline, and other substances to increase volume.

Which Drugs Can Mimic Heroin?

Although Hoffman wasn’t the first person to synthesize either aspirin or heroin, he did make both for Bayer, which sold both of them…at the same time… The Gupta method requires 4-anilinopiperidine (4-AP), which produces ANPP. Moreover, through the Gupta method, illicit producers can produce over 650,000 different types of fentanyl analogues. There are at least a hundred ways to produce methamphetamine, according to InSight Crime interviews with Mexican authorities.

The P2P synthesis can be reached through drug rehab success rate statistics various chemical substances, many of which have legal uses in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and agricultural industries, among others. Heroin is a derivative of the natural opiate morphine, which is a drug commonly prescribed to treat severe or chronic pain. ’ Heroin comes from morphine, an opiate substance extracted from the opium poppy.2 These plants thrive in warm, dry climates, and most opium poppies grow in a stretch of mountains that runs through southern Asia from Turkey through Pakistan and Laos.

How Naloxone Saves Lives in Opioid Overdose

Some people may also try to manufacture heroin from prescription opioid drugs, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone. Heroin is an unregulated drug that can contain a variety of ingredients. These ingredients, sometimes referred to as symptoms of roofied cutting agents, can dilute heroin or in some cases increase its effects. The purest form of heroin is a shiny, white powder, known as diacetylmorphine hydrochloride. Heroin comes from opium poppy plants, which are grown on several different continents throughout the world. Due to its potentially life-threatening effects and highly addictive nature, it can be helpful to know about where heroin comes from, what ingredients are in heroin, how heroin is used and how it affects the brain and body.

An illegal trade developed at that time between heroin labs in China (mostly in Shanghai and Tianjin) and other nations. The weakness of the government in China and conditions of civil war enabled heroin production to take root there. Chinese triad gangs eventually came to play a major role in the illicit heroin trade. T To make smoking heroin or “Heroin No. 3,” the heroin base is mixed with hydrochloric acid and additives such as caffeine.

The helpline at AddictionResource.net is available 24/7 to discuss the treatment needs of yourself or a loved one. This liquor storage helpline is answered by Legacy Healing Center, an addiction treatment provider with treatment facilities in California, Florida, Ohio, and New Jersey. Raw opium is harvested from the seed pods of these plants, which contain a milky fluid.

Medications for Opioid Overdose, Withdrawal, & Addiction

Salicylic acid contains one hydroxyl group, which is easily acetylated to form aspirin. The third method, Gupta, is currently considered the most widely used to produce illicit fentanyl, according to samples analyzed by the DEA’s Fentanyl Profiling Program. This method was patented in 2009 by Pradeep Kumar Gupta, Laxmi Manral, Kumaran Ganesan, Ramesh Chandra Malhotra, and Krishna Murthy Sekhar, members of the Defense Research and Development Organization from India’s Ministry of Defense. Even though Afghanistan may manufacture a large percentage of the world’s heroin, much of the heroin consumed in the United States is produced in Mexico and South America (mainly Colombia). To find another treatment program, browse the top-rated addiction treatment facilities in each state by visiting our homepage, or by viewing the SAMHSA Treatment Services Locator. If one of Legacy’s treatment centers is not a good fit, a representative of Legacy may refer you to another detox or treatment center or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) hotline to find a program that best suits your needs.

Our caring admissions advisors are available 24/7 to provide helpful information, help you find treatment centers that match your individual requirements and check your insurance coverage. Users report an intense rush, an acute transcendent state of euphoria, which occurs while diamorphine is being metabolized into 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) and morphine in the brain. Some believe that heroin produces more euphoria than other opioids; one possible explanation is the presence of 6-monoacetylmorphine, a metabolite unique to heroin – although a more likely explanation is the rapidity of onset. While other opioids of recreational use produce only morphine, heroin also leaves 6-MAM, also a psycho-active metabolite. Little research has been focused on the suppository (anal insertion) or pessary (vaginal insertion) methods of administration, also known as “plugging”.