Pharmaceutical Drugs Are the Same as Street Drugs

Street drugs have roots in the pharmacy. Some drugs like heroin and cocaine which today carry a strong stigma were once mass prescribed. Meth is still manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Xanex, Oxy-Contin and Methadone are prescription drugs sold in the streets.

Street drugs have always been made in the pharmaceutical lab first. Heroin and aspirin were invented by the same guy. A few days after aspirin went on the market he trademarked heroin as a cure for morphine addiction and as a cough syrup for children. Parker Davis a subsidiary of drug giant Pfizer was the first to sell cocaine. They even sold a cocaine injection kit.  LSD was born as a psychiatric drug. MDMA was first sold by Merek, the drug company which first marketed morphine. Meth is a notorious street drug. It originated in drug companies and is still issued to children in the form of Ritalin. Meth was given to soldiers during WWII. Hitler as well as many soldiers were addicted by the end of the war. Today street meth is made from over-the-counter cold medicines.

Many cry out that America is over-prescribed. 40% of Americans ingest prescription chemicals daily. Some people believe that drug companies support anti-drug legislation because they don’t want their customers buying from the little guy on the street. 10% of America’s written prescriptions are for painkillers making the legal drug dealer’s corner nationwide. There are enough painkillers available in the United States at this moment that every American could take a standard dose of Vicodin every four hours for a month before we’d run out (Center for Disease Control and Prevention.) Many of the 40% taking prescriptions do not take Ritalin or drugs with similar effects to common street drugs. However when heroin and cocaine were first sold they were advertised as new frontiers of medicine not addictive substances. Drug companies goal is to sell a product. The drug company’s history of repeatedly manufacturing drugs which are now considered highly dangerous and addictive make some ponder how many of the drugs America is taking now will one day be seen differently.

Source:
http://www.naturalnews.com/021768_street_drugs_illegal.html
http://www.disinfo.com/2011/11/painkiller-overdose-epidemic-hits-united-states/
http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2011/09/chronic-pain-drug-war.html