In 1943, Smith, Kline, and the French pharmaceutical company added spicy pepper extract to Benzedrine, their popular decongestant inhaler. It was hoped that the burning taste of capsaicin, the compound responsible for the “pepper” of hot peppers, would prevent people from opening the inhaler housing and consuming the contents. Why would anyone want to do that? Simple: the active ingredient in the benzedrine inhaler was amphetamine, a compound that could have a big effect!
When smelled according to instructions, amphetamine was an effective decongestant, but when the contents of the entire inhaler were swallowed, amphetamine produced a mind-altering effect. This was not necessarily a pleasant experience, as the amount of amphetamine in the inhaler was 250 milligrams, much larger than the 5-10 milligrams of the pills being prescribed at the time as the drug to increase mood.
The habit of cracking the inhaler first arose in the 1930s in the jazz music community. Charlie Parker, the famous saxophonist, was known to break a benzedrine inhaler before playing. But it was in the early 1940s that the abuse of inhalers left its mark. Although amphetamine pills required a prescription, inhalers were readily available over the counter. Military prison guards were sometimes known to supplement their income by smuggling inhalers to prisoners for a large profit. In an Indiana prison, a guard was caught with more than three hundred inhalers in his room!
Smith, Kline, and French were deeply concerned when they learned that drug users in British Columbia were breaking down inhalers and holding their contents after mixing them with morphine. The fear was that this would lead the Canadian authorities to take action to regulate amphetamine as a narcotic, preventing the sale of over-the-counter benzedrine inhalers. This in turn would mean a significant loss of revenue. SKF therefore proposed adding capsaicin to the inhaler, as well as a black dye that would leave an unpleasant color in the abuser’s mouth. The idea was that the irritation caused by capsaicin and the marks left by the revealing black dye would discourage injection or ingestion of the contents of the inhaler.
It is unclear to what extent these deterrents were, but their incorporation into the products kept lawmakers aloof. California needed a little more conviction, so SKF undertook to add black dye and picric acid to its product. Picric acid had a horrible taste and caused nausea, which was said to prevent internal use. With this maneuver, SKF was able to gain enough time to find an amphetamine substitute in its inhaler, which it did in 1949. Benzedrex, the new “unstimulated” inhaler, contained propylhexedrine as the active ingredient and replaced benzedrine. as an inhaler. over-the-counter inhaler for people with nasal congestion. Today, benzedrine is just a memory, but prescription amphetamine is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obesity, and depression. Unfortunately, abuse is still among us, especially methamphetamine, a close relative that is illegally produced by clandestine chemists, which also appears in “Breaking Bad.”
@JoeSchwarcz