While not itself life-threatening, the opioid WITHDRAWAL syndrome is extremely unpleasant and contributes to further opioid use and relapse. HEROIN addicts report that the acute withdrawal syndrome begins in approximately eight hours after their last injection and includes the following: craving for the drug, anxiety, perspiration, perspiration with hot and cold flashes, tearing of the eyes and nose, restlessness, problems sleeping, problems falling asleep, goose bumps, aching bones and muscles, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, spontaneous yawning, and a group of symptoms called flu-like.

During the later years of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth, some cures for this opioid withdrawal syndrome have been far worse than the withdrawal itself—with some actually causing death. Soon after it became available in the mid-nineteenth century, injectable MORPHINE was proposed as a treatment for opium eating; then heroin or COCAINE were, in the late...