Did You Know Bayer Made Heroin?

That’s right, Bayer made Heroin.

Well chemically, Heroin is diacetylmorphine and diacetylmorphine was first synthesized in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, but the name ‘Heroin’, that’s 100% Bayer.  In 1898 the German drug company Friedrich Bayer & Co, now Bayer AG, registered a trademark for the name product name Heroin, so literally Bayer made Heroin.

Here’s a few fun images of Bayer Heroin bottles and other marketing materials:

Bayer Heroin bottle

Fancy Bayer Heroin bottle

Bayer Heroin marketing materials

Bayer company marketing materials

Bayer Aspirin and Heroin marketing materials

Synthesis of Heroin from Opium

Bayer Heroin molecule

3D Heroin molecule

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Yes, for over 12 years in the early 1900’s this company that we still buy aspirin from today also marketed Heroin to people trying to kick their morphine habit.

The Bayer Heroin campaign went a little something like: try our new “non-addictive morphine substitute”. Oops, how about a more addictive morphine substitute?

For the 2012 United States Election Remember, Bayer made Heroin

Think about this when you get ready to vote in November: the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. Super PACs are “political committees that may raise and spend unlimited money to independently support or oppose candidates“.

Translation: Corporations can spend any amount to support a candidate in the election (using Super PACs or Political Action Committees). Frightening indeed.

When you hear all of the advertising rhetoric leading up to the United States Presidential Election, ask yourself who is behind the message you are hearing? Does it seem a little too evil or dumb to be true? Or is it just sensationalism and patriot music?

Do you trust that big corporations are making their decisions with public interest in mind? Bayer made Heroin and sold it to the public for over 12 years. Profits on products (like legal Heroin) should not drive our political system and should not be used to suppress other products and the will of the people.

We must continue to think for ourselves and tell our politicians: just because marijuana has been on Schedule I Controlled Substances Act for a very long time, doesn’t make it right regardless of the money being stuffed into some of their pockets.