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Opium

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This article is about the drug. For other meanings of "opium", see opium (disambiguation). For opium-derived and opium-like substances, see opioids and opiates.
A field of opium poppies in Burma

Opium is a narcotic resin produced from opium poppies (Papaver somniferum). It contains up to 16% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the black market. The resin also includes non-narcotic alkaloids, such as papaverine and noscapine. Opium is also known as afeem, and was called "God's Own Medicine" during its time of greatest popularity.[1]

Modern opium production is the culmination of millennia of production, in which the source poppy, methods of extraction and processing, and methods of consumption have become increasingly potent. The medicinal use of poppies for pain relief dates back to ancient times, but widespread use in patent medicines or as a recreational drug has occurred only in the last few centuries. Drug prohibition laws in most countries have been promulgated only during the last century. Today the opium crop is worth in excess of $400 million legally and $7 billion illegally, after processing.

History

Ancient use (4200 BC - 800 BC)

Opium crop from the Malwa region of India (probably Papaver somniferum var. album[2])

The use of the opium poppy dates from time immemorial. At least seventeen finds of Papaver somniferum from Neolithic settlements have been reported throughout Switzerland, Germany, and Spain, including the placement of large numbers of poppy seed capsules at a burial site (the Cueva de los Murcialagos ("Bat cave") in Spain), which have been carbon dated to 4200 B.C. Numerous finds of Papaver somniferum or Papaver setigerum from Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have also been reported.[3] The first known cultivation of opium poppies was in Mesopotamia, approximately 3400 B.C., by Sumerians who called the plant Hul Gil, the "joy plant".[4][5] Tablets found at Nipper, a Sumerian spiritual center south of Baghdad, described the collection of poppy juice in the morning and its use in production of opium.[6] Cultivation continued in the Middle East by the Assyrians, who also collected poppy juice (which they called aratpa-pal, possibly the root of Papaver) in the morning after scoring the pods with an iron scoop. Opium production continued under the Babylonians and Egyptians.

Opium was used with poison hemlock to put people quickly and painlessly to death, but it was also used in medicine. The Ebers Papyrus, ca. 1500 B.C., describes a way to "prevent the excessive crying of children" using grains of the poppy-plant strained to a pulp. Spongia somnifera, sponges soaked in opium, were used during surgery.[7] The Egyptians cultivated opium thebaicum in famous poppy fields around 1300 B.C. Opium was traded from Egypt by the Phoenicians and Minoans to destinations around the Mediterranean Sea, including Greece, Carthage, and Europe. By 1100 B.C. opium was cultivated on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where surgical quality knives were used to score the poppy pods, and opium was cultivated, traded, and smoked. Opium was also mentioned after the Persian conquest of Assyria and Babylonia in the sixth century B.C..[8]

From the earliest finds opium has appeared to have a ritual significance, and it has been speculated that ancient priests may have used the drug as a proof of healing power.[9] The poppy has been associated with many gods. In Egypt, the use of opium was generally restricted to priests, magicians, and warriors, its invention credited to Thoth, and it was said to have been given by Isis to Ra as treatment for a headache.[10] A figure of the Minoan "goddess of the narcotics", wearing a crown of three opium poppies, ca. 1300 B.C., was recovered from the Sanctuary of Gazi, Crete.[11] The Greek gods Hypnos (Sleep), Nyx (Night), and Thanatos (Death) were depicted wreathed in poppies or holding poppies. Poppies and sometimes ears of corn also frequently adorned statues of Apollo, Asklepios, Pluto, Demeter, Aphrodite, Kybele and Isis, symbolizing nocturnal oblivion.[12]

Ancient Greece and Rome (800 BC-600 AD)

Opium was well known to the ancient Greeks, who called the poppy plant μήκωνιον (mekonion), and its juice όπός μήκων (opos mekun) The Greek όπός or όπιον was Latinized to Roman "opium". "Mekon" is simply a word for poppy, used in the first Greek written account of poppy production by Hesiod in the 8th century B.C. Because variants of "opos" or "opion" are widely used for the sap throughout the world, in countries where other portions of the plant are referred to by indigenous names, it has been supposed that the Greeks first discovered the use of poppy sap, and that previous use had been limited to consumption of seed capsules.[13] The familiarity of the plant to Greek audiences is illustrated when Homer describes an exhausted warrior dropping his heavy helmeted head, like a drooping poppy bud. Hippocrates recognized opium as useful in treating internal diseases, diseases of women and epidemics. Alexander the Great is credited with introducing opium to India and Persia in 330 B.C.

Greek references to poppies distinguished white, fire-red, black, and hypnotic varieties (Hippocrates); black or horned, flowing, and Heraklean (Theophrastus). One study inferred botanical species based on descriptions by Dioskourides: Papaver hybridum - a "flowing" poppy that sheds its flowers rapidly with hypnotic properties, Papaver somniferum - a cultivated garden "pouched" poppy that is good for baking bread and has white seeds and elongated flowers, Papaver orientalis - a wild "jar" poppy with elongated and involuted capsule and black seeds, a more poisonous wild poppy with a longer capsule, Glauceum luteum - a "horned" poppy growing wild by the sea, and Gratiola officinalis - a "foaming" poppy called the Heraklean poppy by some.[14] It has been speculated that opium may originally have been obtained from Papaver setigerum, a close relative of Papaver somniferum from which it was once thought to have been domesticated.[15] However, although Papaver setigerum is one of very few poppies to have a significant morphine content, early cytogenetic analysis revealed that it is a tetraploid with 22 chromosomes, compared to the 11 of Papaver somniferum, making it an unlikely ancestor.[16]

The Greeks often distinguished opium from a weaker drug, "meconium". This could refer specifically to a different poppy strain e.g. Euphorbia paralias (paralion). Alternatively, "meconium" was used by Scribonius Largus, Pliny, Hippocrates, and Dioskourides to refer to juice emanating from the leaves and fruit of the poppy, or obtained from them by boiling (see Poppy tea), or tablets formed by crushing them in a mortar and pestle.[17]

In De Medicina (ca. 30 AD), Aulus Cornelius Celsus detailed many uses for "poppy tears", as an emollient for painful joints and anal fissures, in anodynes (pills promoting relief of pain through sleep), in antidotes for poisoning (including the Mithridatium), for use in colic and to promote micturition. [24] He also recommended the juice of boiled poppy heads for procuring sleep, treating earaches, intestinal gripings, inflammation of the womb, and to reduce the flow of phlegm into the eyes. However, Celsus is thought to have used a wild poppy, Papaver rhoeas with a very low opiate content,[18]) and in any case did not regard it as uniquely powerful. He described "poppy-tears" as one of many emollient herbs and minerals, used as an ingredient in some formulations for pain but not others.

Despite the widespread therapeutic and possible ritual use of the drug, and although drunkenness from wine was well-documented, there is very little evidence that opium addiction or hedonistic use of opium occurred in the ancient world.[19] The best candidates for opium addiction noted from ancient accounts are Ovid and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Another difference from common modern practice is that ancient authors such as Hippocrates and Celsus often described the topical use of opium or "poppy-tears" directly at the site of pain, in the eye, or introduced into a wound. When administered directly at the site of pain, morphine has recently been recognized to have a moderate analgesic effect, relying on peripheral opioid receptors, and this limited dosage does not have addictive or life-threatening effects.[20][21]

Islamic Empire (600-1500 A.D.)

As the power of the Roman Empire declined, the lands to the south and east of the Mediterranean became incorporated into the Islamic Empire, which assembled the finest libraries and the most skilled physicians of the era. Although many Muslims believe that the hadith of al-Bukhari prohibits every intoxicating substance as haraam, for medical treatment the use of intoxicants (even wine) has been allowed.[22] The five-volume De Materia Medica of Pedanius Dioscorides, ancestor to all modern pharmacopoeias, remained in continuous use (with some improvements in Arabic versions[23]) from the first century until 1600 A.D., and described opium, meconium and the wide range of uses prevalent in the ancient world[24] Somewhere between 400 and 1200 A.D., opium was introduced to China by Arab traders.[25][26][27] Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (845-930 A.D.), who was born near Teheran and maintained a laboratory and school in Baghdad, a student and critic of Galen, made use of opium in anaesthesia and recommended its use for the treatment of melancholy in Man la Yahduruhu Al-Tabib, a home medical manual directed toward ordinary citizens for self-treatment if a doctor was not available.[28][29] The renowned opthamologic surgeon Abu al-Qasim Ammar (936-1013 A.D.) relied on opium and mandragora as surgical anaesthetics, and wrote a treatise al-Tasrif that influenced medical thought well into the sixteenth century.[30][31] The Persian physician Abū ‘Alī al-Husayn (Avicenna) described opium as the most powerful of the stupefacients, by comparison with mandrake and other highly effective herbs, in The Canon of Medicine. This classic text was translated into Latin in 1175 and later into many other languages, and remained authoritative into the seventeenth century.[32] Şerefeddin Sabuncuoğlu used opium in the fourteenth century Ottoman Empire to treat migraine headache, sciatica, and other painful ailments. [33]

Opium in Western medicine (1500-1800 A.D.)

Opium became stigmatized in Europe during the Inquisition as a Middle Eastern influence, and became a taboo subject in Europe from approximately 1300 to 1500 A.D.

The use of Paracelsus' laudanum was introduced to Western medicine in 1527, when Philip Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim returned from his wanderings in Arabia with a famous sword, within the pommel of which he kept "Stones of Immortality" compounded from opium thebaicum, citrus juice, and "quintessence of gold".[34][35][36] The name "Paracelsus" was a pseudonym signifying him the equal or better of Aulus Cornelius Celsus, whose text, which described the use of opium or a similar preparation, had recently been translated and reintroduced to medieval Europe.[37] The Canon of Medicine, the standard medical textbook that Paracelsus burned in a public bonfire three weeks after being appointed professor at the University of Basel, also described the use of opium, but many Latin translations were of low quality.[38] "Laudanum" was originally the sixteenth-century term for a medicine associated with a particular physician that was widely well-regarded, but became standardized as "tincture of opium", a solution of opium in ethyl alcohol, which Paracelsus has been credited with developing. During his lifetime, Paracelsus was viewed as an adventurer who challenged the theories and mercenary motives of contemporary medicine with dangerous chemical therapies, but his therapies marked a turning point in Western medicine. In the seventeenth century laudanum was recommended for pain, sleeplessness, and diarrhea[39] by Thomas Sydenham, the renowned "father of English medicine" or "English Hippocrates", to whom is attributed the quote, "Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium."[40] Medieval formulations of mithridatium described in the 1728 Chambers Cyclopedia included true opium in the mixture. Laudanum was also the basis of many of the patent medicines of the 19th century.

Recreational use

Opium use in 18-century China
An "opium den" in the East End of London, 1874.
Main article: Opium dens

An early form of opium smoking involved the consumption of madak, a blend of tobacco and opium that became common in Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 19th century, in part because of a ban on madak in China, smoking of pure opium became more common. By this time, opium use had become widespread across much of the world, although consumption patterns and routes of administration varied. Opium consumption throughout nineteenth-century Britain was common, since it could be obtained legally for the purpose of killing pain.

In the nineteenth century, the conditions associated with colonialism led to the Chinese diaspora and Indian diaspora, as people fled great hardship to survive as lascars (seamen) and "coolies" (manual laborers). These workers brought the use of opium with them, and the social traditions of the opium den. Because of the low social status of the workers, contemporary writers and media had little trouble portraying opium dens as seats of vice, white slavery, gambling, knife and revolver fights, a source for drugs causing deadly overdoses, with the potential to addict and corrupt the white population. By 1919, anti-Chinese riots attacked Limehouse, the Chinatown of London. Chinese men were deported for playing puck-apu, a popular gambling game, and sentenced to hard labor for opium possession. Both the immigrant population and the social use of opium fell into decline.[41][42]

Prohibition and conflict

Destruction of opium in China
Main article: Prohibition (drugs)

Opium prohibition began in 1729, when Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty, disturbed by madak smoking at court and carrying out the government's role of upholding Confucian virtue, officially prohibited the import of opium, except for a small amount for medicinal purposes. The ban came on the heels of an earlier 1644 ban on tobacco by the Ming emperor, which had encouraged smokers to mix in increasing amounts of opium.[43] The ban punished sellers and opium den keepers, but not users of the drug.[26] Opium prohibition in China continued until 1860, and was later resumed.

English opium ships

Under the Qing Dynasty China opened itself to foreign trade under the Canton System through the port of Guangzhou (Canton), and traders from the British East India Company began visiting the port by the 1690s. Due to the growing British demand for Chinese tea, and the Chinese disinterest in British commodities other than silver, the British became interested in opium as a high-value commodity for which China was not self sufficient. Opium had been traded to China in small amounts since the Song dynasty (900 A.D.), and the British traders had been purchasing small amounts of opium from India for trade since Ralph Fitch first visited in the mid-sixteenth century.[26] Trade in opium was standardized, with production of balls of raw opium, 1.1 to 1.6 kg, 30% water content, wrapped in poppy leaves and petals, shipped in chests of 60-65 kg (one picul).[26] Chests of opium were sold in auctions in Calcutta with the understanding that the independent purchasers would then smuggle it into China. (see Opium Wars)

After the 1757 Battle of Plassey and 1764 Battle of Buxar, the British East India Company gained the power to act as diwan of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa (See company rule in India) This allowed the company to pursue a monopoly on opium production and export in India, to encourage ryots to cultivate the cash crops of indigo and opium with cash advances, and to prohibit the "hoarding" of rice. This strategy led to the increase of the land tax to 50% of the value of crops, the starvation of ten million people in the Bengal famine of 1770, and the doubling of East India Company profits by 1777. Beginning in 1773 the British government began enacting oversight of the company's operations, culminating in the establishment of British India in response to the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Some competition came from the newly independent United States, which began to compete in Guangzhou (Canton) selling Turkish opium in the 1820s. Portuguese traders also brought opium from the independent Malwa states of western India, although by 1820 the British were able to restrict this trade by charging "pass duty" on the opium when it was forced to pass through Bombay to reach an entrepot.[26]

Despite drastic penalties and continued prohibition of opium until 1860, opium importation rose steadily from 200 chests per year under Yongzheng to 1,000 under Qianlong, 4,000 under Jiaqing, and 30,000 under Daoguang, whose attempts to restrict the trade precipitated the first Opium War.[44]

Opium wars

Second Opium War
Main article: Opium Wars

In response to the ever-growing number of Chinese people becoming addicted to opium, the Imperial Qing Dynasty took strong action to halt the import of opium, including the seizure of cargo. In 1838 the Chinese Commissioner Lin Zexu destroyed 20,000 chests of opium in Guangzhou (Canton).[26] Given that a chest of opium was worth nearly $1,000 in 1800, this was a substantial economic loss. The British, not willing to replace the cheap opium with costly silver, began the First Opium War, seizing Hong Kong and beginning what the Chinese term the "century of shame".

This illegal trade became one of the world's most valuable single commodity trades. Many large American fortunes were built in the opium trade, including those of John Jacob Astor (partially and briefly), James Grant Forbes, and the grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Prominent historian John King Fairbank described the West's opium trade into China as "the most long continued and systematic international crime of modern times".[45]

Following China's defeat in the Second Opium War in 1858, China was forced to legalize opium and began massive domestic production. Importation of opium peaked in 1879 at 6,700 tons, and by 1906 China was producing 85% of the world's opium, some 35,000 tons, and 27% of its adult male population was addicted - 13.5 million addicts consuming 39,000 tons of opium yearly.[46] From 1880 to the beginning of the Communist era the British attempted a ban of opium use in China that effectively promoted the use of morphine, heroin, and cocaine, further exacerbating the problem of addiction.[47]

See also: Japanese opium policy in Taiwan (1895-1945)

Prohibition in the United States

There were no legal restrictions on the importation or use of opium in the United States until a San Francisco, California ordinance which banned the smoking of opium in opium dens in 1875. U.S president William Henry Harrison was treated with opium in 1841, and in the American Civil War, the Union Army used 2.8 million ounces of opium tincture and powder and about 500,000 opium pills.[48] The Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 prohibited the importation of opium. Before passage of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, medicines often contained opium without any warning label.

International agencies and agreements

In 1909 the International Opium Commission was founded, and by 1914 thirty-four nations had agreed that the production and importation of opium should be diminished. In 1924, sixty-two nations participated in a meeting of the Commission. Subsequently this role passed to the League of Nations, and all signatory nations agreed to prohibit the import, sale, distribution, export, and use of all narcotic drugs, except for medical and scientific purposes. Presently this role has been taken up by the International Narcotics Control Board of the United Nations under Article 23 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Opium-producing nations are required to designate a government agency to take physical possession of licit opium crops as soon as possible after harvest and conduct all wholesaling and exporting through that agency.[49]

Obsolescence

Bayer heroin bottle

Opium has gradually been superseded by a variety of purified, semi-synthetic, and synthetic opioids with progressively stronger effect, and by other general anaesthesia. This process began in 1817, when Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner reported the isolation of pure morphine from opium after at least thirteen years of research and a nearly disastrous trial on himself and three boys.[50] The great advantage of purified morphine was that a patient could be treated with a known dose - whereas with raw plant material, as Gabriel Fallopius once lamented, "if soporifics are weak they do not help; if they are strong they are exceedingly dangerous." Morphine was the first pharmaceutical isolated from a natural product, and this success encouraged the isolation of other alkaloids: by 1820, isolations of narcotine, strychnine, veratrine, colchicine, caffeine, and quinine were reported. Morphine sales began in 1827, by Heinrich Emanuel Merck of Darmstadt, and helped him expand his family pharmacy into the massive Merck KGaA pharmaceutical company.

Codeine was isolated in 1832 by Robiquet.

The use of diethyl ether and chloroform for general anesthesia began in 1846-1847, and rapidly displaced the use of opiates and tropane alkaloids from Solanaceae due to their relative safety.[51]

Heroin, the first semi-synthetic opiate, was first synthesized in 1874, but was not pursued until its rediscovery in 1897 by Felix Hoffmann at the Bayer pharmaceutical company in Elberfeld, Germany. From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children. By 1902, sales made up 5% of the company's profits, and "heroinism" had attracted media attention.[52] Oxycodone, a thebaine derivative similar to codeine, was introduced by Bayer in 1916 and promoted as a less-addictive analgesic. Preparations of the drug such as Percocet and Oxycontin remain popular to this day.

A range of synthetic opioids such as methadone (1937), pethidine (1939), fentanyl (late 1950s), and derivatives thereof have been introduced, and each is preferred for certain specialized applications. No drug has yet been found that can match the painkilling effect of opium without also duplicating much of its addictive potential.

Production today

Opium poppies

Scoring the poppy pod.
Raw opium
Main article: Opium poppy

In South American countries, opium poppies (Papaver somniferum) are technically illegal, but nonetheless appear in some nurseries as ornamentals. They are popular and attractive garden plants, whose flowers vary greatly in color, size and form. A modest amount of domestic cultivation in private gardens is not usually subject to legal controls. In part this tolerance reflects variation in addictive potency: a cultivar for opium production, Papaver somniferum L. elite, contains 92% morphine, codeine, and thebaine in its latex alkaloids, whereas the condiment cultivar "Marianne" has only one-fifth this total, with the remaining alkaloids made up mostly of narcotoline and noscapine.[53]

Seed capsules can be dried and used for decorations, but they also contain morphine, codeine, and other alkaloids. These pods can be boiled in water to produce a bitter tea that induces a long-lasting intoxication. (See Poppy tea) If allowed to mature, poppy pods can be crushed into "poppy straw" and used to produce lower quantities of morphinans. In poppies subjected to mutagenesis and selection on a mass scale, researchers have been able to use poppy straw to obtain large quantities of oripavine, a precursor to opioids and antagonists such as naltrexone.[54]

Poppyseeds are a common and flavorsome topping for breads and cakes. One gram of poppy seeds contains up to 33 micrograms of morphine and 14 micrograms of codeine, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration mandates that all drug screening laboratories use a standard cutoff of 300 nanograms per ml in urine samples. A single poppy seed roll (0.76 grams of seeds) usually will not produce a positive drug test, but a positive result was observed from eating two rolls. A slice of poppy seed cake containing nearly five grams of seeds per slice produces positive results for 24 hours. Such results are viewed as false positive indications of drug abuse, and can be the basis of a legal defense.[55][56] During the Communist era in Eastern Europe, poppy stalks sold in bundles by farmers were processed by users with household chemicals to make kompot ("Polish heroin"), and poppy seeds were used to produce koknar, an opiate.[57]

Harvesting poppies for opium

When grown for opium production, the skin of the ripening pods of these poppies are scored by a sharp blade at a time carefully chosen so that neither rain, wind, nor dew can spoil the exudation of white, milky latex, usually in the afternoon. Incisions are made while the pods are still raw, with no more than a slight yellow tint, and must be shallow to avoid penetrating hollow inner chambers or loculi while cutting into the lactiferous vessels. In India, the special tool used to make the incisions is called a nushtar, and carries three or four blades three millimeters apart, which are scored upward along the pod. Incisions are made three or four times at intervals of two to three days, and each time the "poppy tears", which dry to a sticky brown resin, are collected the following morning. One acre harvested in this way can produce three to five kilograms of raw opium.[58]

Opium is typically not transported and sold raw. Raw opium must be processed and refined (called "cooking") before it is suitable for smoking. The raw opium is first dissolved in water and simmered over a low heat. The brown solution is then filtered to remove the insoluble vegetable waxes and then evaporated over a low heat. The result is a smokable form of opium with a considerably higher morphine content percentage-wise than the raw latex. This is then pressed into bricks and either transported to heroin laboratories or used as is.[citation needed]

Black tar opium seized in Afghanistan, spring 2005

Typically opium is processed to separate the pharmacologically active morphine (along with some codeine). These may then be converted into heroin (diacetylmorphine) by a simple chemical reaction.[59][60] The conversion of morphine to heroin greatly increases the potency of a given quantity of the drug.[61][62]

Illegal production

Main producers of opium for the heroin trade
See also: Opium production in Afghanistan and Illegal drug trade

Opium production has fallen greatly since 1906, when 41,000 tons were produced, but because 39,000 tons of that year's opium were consumed in China, overall usage in the rest of the world was much lower.[63] In 1980, 2,000 tons of opium supplied all legal and illegal uses.[26] Recently, opium production has increased considerably, surpassing 5,000 tons in 2002. In 2002 the price for one kilogram of opium was $300 for the farmer, $800 for purchasers in Afghanistan, and $16,000 on the streets of Europe before conversion into heroin.[64]

Afghanistan is currently the primary producer of the drug. After regularly producing 70% of the world's opium, Afghanistan decreased production to 74 tons per year under a ban by the Taliban in 2000, although the ban may have been intended primarily to boost prices after the country accumulated a stockpile with over two years' supply.[65] After the 2001 war in Afghanistan, production increased again. According to DEA statistics, Afghanistan's production of oven-dried opium increased to 1,278 tons in 2002, more than doubled by 2003, and nearly doubled again during 2004. In late 2004, the U.S. government estimated that 206,000 hectares were under poppy cultivation, 4.5% of the country's total cropland, and produced 4,200 metric tons of opium, 87% of the world's supply, yielding 60% of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.[66] In 2006, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated production to have risen 59% to 407,000 acres in cultivation, yielding 6,100 tons of opium, 92% of the world's supply.[67] The value of the resulting heroin was estimated at $3.5 billion, of which Afghan farmers were estimated to have received $700 million in revenue (of which the Taliban have been estimated to have collected anywhere from tens of millions to $140 million in taxes).[68] For farmers, the crop can be up to ten times more profitable than wheat.

An increasingly large fraction of opium is processed into heroin and morphine base in drug labs in Afghanistan. Despite an international set of chemical controls designed to restrict availability of acetic anhydride, it enters the country, perhaps through its Central Asian neighbors which do not participate -- conditions generally do not permit collection of chemical samples. A counternarcotics law passed in December 2005 requires Afghanistan to develop registries or regulations for tracking, storing, and owning acetic anhydride.[69]

Besides Afghanistan, smaller quantities of opium are produced in Pakistan, the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia (particularly Myanmar), Colombia and Mexico.

Main article: Opium licensing

Legal opium production is allowed under the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and other international drug treaties, subject to strict supervision by the law enforcement agencies of individual countries. The leading legal production method is the Gregory process, whereby the entire poppy, excluding roots and leaves, is mashed and stewed in dilute acid solutions. The alkaloids are then recovered via acid-base extraction and purified. This process was developed in the UK during World War II, when wartime shortages of many essential drugs encouraged innovation in pharmaceutical processing. The French company Francopia produces 20% to 25% of the world's total requirement for legal opioids, with total sales of approximately € 60 million. The UN treaty requires that every country submit annual reports to the International Narcotics Control Board, stating that year's actual consumption of many classes of controlled drugs as well as opioids, and projecting required quantities for the next year. This is to allow trends in consumption to be monitored, and production quotas allotted. The market for export of controlled drugs is fixed by regulation, in part due to the discovery in the 1930s that huge amounts of opioids had been diverted from the legal pharmaceutical market to the black market via a complex web of front companies and forged declarations. The main participants at that time were Swiss pharmaceutical producers and brokers, and the military regime in pre-World War II Japan, who claimed to be consuming thousands of tonnes of opium, morphine and heroin.[citation needed]

A recent proposal from the European Senlis Council hopes to solve the problems caused by the massive quantity of opium produced illegally in Afghanistan, most of which is converted to heroin, and smuggled for sale in Europe and the USA. This proposal is to license Afghan farmers to produce opium for the world pharmaceutical market, and thereby solve another problem, that of chronic underuse of potent analgesics where required within developing nations. In the industrialized world the USA is the world's biggest consumer of prescription opioids, with Italy one of the lowest. The Italian medical profession seems to have recently accepted that opioids have applications apart from pain relief in terminal cancer. Recorded Italian consumption has increased considerably of late.[70]

Senlis arranged a conference in Kabul that brought drug policy experts from around the world to meet with Afghan government officials to discuss internal security, corruption issues, and legal issues within Afghanistan.[71]

If the record of CIA interference with attempts to "buy and burn" illicit Burmese opium harvests in the past is considered,[72] Afghanistan's opium may be a major part of current War on Drugs policies for some time.

Consumption

Most opium imported into the United States is broken down into its alkaloid constituents, and most current drug use occurs with processed derivatives such as heroin rather than with pure and untouched opium.

Smoking

Akha man with opium pipe

The smoking of opium does not involve the pyrolysis of the material as might be imagined. Rather the prepared opium is indirectly heated to temperatures at which the active alkaloids, chiefly morphine, are vaporized. In the past smokers would lie down with specially designed pipes which had long stems and a metallic receptacle. A small amount of opium up to the size of a pea would be placed in the receptacle and the material heated indirectly by means of a candle or lamp. The smoker would lie on his or her side and inhale the vaporized morphine as needed. The pipe was commonly designed in a rounded cross section, so as to enable the metallic receptacle to be rotated into the heat source and then rest back upright as required. The pea sized material could be sufficient for up to an hour of intermittent use.

Laudanum

Main article: Laudanum

In Eastern culture, opium is more commonly used in the form of paregoric to treat diarrhea. It was also used in the form of laudanum, an alcoholic tincture which was prevalently used as a pain medication and sleeping aid. Tincture of opium has been prescribed, among other reasons, severe diarrhea.[73] A 10% tincture of opium solution (10% opium, 90% ethyl alcohol) taken 30 minutes prior to meals will significantly slow intestinal motility, giving the intestines greater time to absorb fluid in the stool.

Chemical properties and physiological effects

Morphine is the primary biologically-active chemical constituent of opium.
Main article: Opiate
See also: Opioid

Opium contains two main groups of alkaloids. Phenanthrenes include morphine, codeine, and thebaine, and are the main narcotic constituents. Isoquinolines such as papaverine have no significant central nervous system effects and are not regulated under the Controlled Substances Act. Morphine is by far the most prevalent and important alkaloid in opium, consisting of 10%-16% of the total, and is responsible for most of its harmful effects such as lung edema, respiratory difficulties, coma, or cardiac or respiratory collapse, with a normal lethal dose of 120 to 250 mg.[74] (approximately two grams of opium.[75]) Morphine binds to and activates μ-opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, stomach and intestine. Regular use leads to physical tolerance and possibly dependence. Chronic opium addicts in 1906 China [76] or modern-day Iran [77] consume an average of eight grams daily. Various degrees of psychological addiction can occur, though this is relatively rare when opioids are used for treatment of pain, rather than for euphoric effects.[citation needed] These mechanisms result from changes in nervous system receptors in response to the drug. In response to the drug, the brain creates new receptors for opioids. These receptors are "pseudo" receptors and do not work. When the opioids are out of the body, the brain has the same amount of endogenous opioid (endorphins) to fill these receptors, but less of the functional receptors and more non-functional ones. Abstaining from the drug for a time allows the brain to replace the pseudo receptors with functioning ones (a gradual process). Research of ibogaine, an alkaloid found in the Tabernanthe iboga plant of West Central Africa, has shown ibogaine to affect aspects of tolerance and dependence to opioids including the attenuation of withdrawal signs and drug craving behavior. The research has allowed a greater understanding of the mechanism of action of opioid drugs.

Cultural references

Literature

There is a rich and longstanding literature by and about opium users. Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is one of the first and most famous literary accounts of opium addiction written from the point of view of an addict, and details both the pleasures and the dangers of the drug. De Quincey writes about the great English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another famous literary opium addict.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, references to opium and opium addiction abound in English literature, as can be seen, for example, in the opening few paragraphs of Charles Dickens's unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short story The Man with the Twisted Lip, Holmes visits an opium den in order to pursue his investigations, but his lucidity upon shedding his disguise outside the den suggests that he did not partake of the drug. Other works from nineteenth century Britain include "The Lotus-Eaters" by Alfred Lord Tennyson and (some would argue) "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti[citation needed], which depicts thinly-veiled experiences of addiction and withdrawal. Oftentimes, characters in Edgar Allan Poe works are opium users (see "The Oval Portrait" and "Ligeia"), and sometimes the usage of drugs and its corresponding hallucinations or experiences are depicted. Poe himself is not believed to have used opium. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan" is also widely considered to be a poem of the opium experience. In 1957 the physician Douglas Hubble wrote an article called "Opium Addiction and English Literature" that chronicles the use of opium by prominent English writers, and its influence on their works [25]. Jack Black's memoir You cannot Win chronicles one man's experience both as an onlooker in the opium dens of San Francisco, and later as a "hop fiend" himself. In the House of the Scorpions, Mexico becomes a place where opium is planted. Oscar Wilde also wrote of opium use in The Picture of Dorian Gray when the main character visits a den to alleviate his chronic thinking and to add to the dark reputation that the lead character develops. In the well known novel The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, the Count is assuaged by an edible form of opium, and his experience with it is depicted vividly.

In the twentieth century, as the use of opium was eclipsed by morphine and heroin, its role in literature became more limited. In The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Wang Lung, the protagonist, gets his troublesome uncle and aunt addicted to opium in order to keep them out of his hair. William S. Burroughs autobiographically describes the use of opium beside that of its derivatives. The book and subsequent movie, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, may allude to opium at one point in the story, when Dorothy and her friends are drawn into a field of poppies, in which they fall asleep.

Music

Hector Berlioz' Symphony Fantastique tells the tale of a man who overdosed on the drug thinking of the woman he loves. Each of the symphony's five movements takes place at a different setting and with increasingly audible effects from the drug. For example, in the fourth movement, Marche au Supplice, the artist dreams that he is walking to his own execution. In the fifth movement, Songe d’une Nuit du Sabbat, he dreams that he is at a witch's orgy, where he witnesses his beloved dancing wildly along to the demented Dies Irae.

See also

References

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Bibliography

  • Booth, Martin. Opium: A History. London: Simon & Schuster, Ltd., 1996.
  • Fairbank, JK. (1978) The Cambridge History of China: volume 10 part I, Cambridge, CUP
  • Franck Daninos, L'opium légal produit en France, La Recherche, May 2005
  • Hideyuki Takano; The Shore Beyond Good and Evil: A Report from Inside Burma's Opium Kingdom (2002, Kotan, ISBN 0970171617)
  • Latimer, Dean, and Jeff Goldberg with an Introduction by William Burroughs. Flowers in the Blood: The Story of Opium. New York: Franklin Watts, 1981
  • McCoy, Alfred W. The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991.
  • Musto, David F. The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Photos

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