Heroin

Heroin is a crude preparation of diamorphine. It is a semisynthetic product obtained by acetylation of morphine, which occurs as a natural product in opium: the dried latex of certain poppy species (e.g. Papaver somniferum L.). Diamorphine is a narcotic analgesic used in the treatment of severe pain. Illicit heroin may be smoked or solubilized with a weak acid and injected. Whereas opium has been smoked since historical times, diamorphine was first synthesized in the late nineteenth century. Heroin is under international control.