Heroin

Heroin (diacetylmorphine) is a narcotic drug, manufactured from the opium poppy. Aside from the addition of two acetyl groups, it is identical to morphine. The addition allows the drug to cross the blood-brain barrier more quickly than morphine, making it about 3 times as potent.

Heroin was briefly commercially marketed as a cough medicine for children, and as substitute for medicinal morphine, having been erroneously believed to be non-addictive.

Apart from medicinal use under strict control, heroin is illegal nearly worldwide, with harsh penalties for its possession, manufacture and trafficking, including the death penalty in many countries. The reasons for this are mostly political, as there are numerous prescription narcotics which are just as or are many times more potent than the heroin (e.g. Fentenyl, Oxymorphone).

Illegal use of heroin is typically conducted via syringe, insufflation, or smoking. Overdoses are fairly common as street purity varies widely.