Bayer sold heroin as children's cough medicine

Chemist Felix Hoffmann had synthesized the compound a few years earlier while looking for a less addictive alternative to morphine. Bayer marketed it under the brand name Heroin, with some advertisements showing children reaching eagerly for a spoonful.

Bayer produced more than a ton of the drug within its first year and sold it in at least 23 countries. By 1900 it was the company's best-selling product, promoted directly to parents as safe enough for a child's cough, years before its addictive potential was widely acknowledged.

Physicians slowly accumulated reports of dependence and overdose through the early 1900s, and public pressure built against the product. Bayer kept manufacturing it until 1913, and the United States did not ban heroin outright until 1924, more than two decades after it had been marketed as medicine for children.

A cough remedy became a controlled substance.