Heroin was first discovered in 1898 by a German scientist who patented it as a cough suppressant. The drug was not suspected of being addictive for a long time and was even used as a cure for morphine addiction. By the 1950s however, the dangers of heroin had become apparent and One-Way Ticket To Hell exploited the opportunities offered by this new menace. The film was, in fact, pretty undiscriminating, warning against a whole host of social menaces, including marijuana, heroin, teenagers, motorbikes and 'nasty foreigners'. (The film was so low-budget that the producer's parents were in the cast.) It was part of a dying cycle of 'myth and menace' exploitation drug films that inevitably faded away in the face of Hollywood's increasingly honest depiction of the issue.