Talk:Opium/Archive 1

The first paragraph of "History of Opium" seems troublesome. The word "delicious"(Which I'm about to change back to delete), and the bit about "prudishly described" seem to be the worst of it. The word "attribute" is bothering me... but seems to be proper usage. The phrase, "an entheogen" seems to be stuck in there for no better reason than to use the word or throw a link in. I think I'm going to clip that too. I don't know about the Metropolitan Museum's gallery or exhibits, but if the name of the deity in the bas relief is known, I think it should be used(with a link either to a page of its own, or a page for its group of gods). And can someone check on the museum's description? I would remove the word "prudishly" got NPOV, but I'd rather it stand out as a red flag for whomever can confirm the description. -- MikeMaller 01:52, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It would be interesting to explain where opium is natural from and where is it cultivated today. Also, what is the English word for a place where opium is sold and smoked? -- Error

An "oporium"? -- goatasaur

An "opium den"? -- Anon

That's traditionally what it's been called. The image shows one in Victorian times. -- ChrisO 08:39, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Production today

I wrote a little bit about the production of opium in Afghanistan but I don't think it is substantial. There is a lot more that can be put into that section and I would add more but I don't have the time to do research on other countries that produce opium and the statistics on opium production today. Rayana fazli 21:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think these paragraphs should be added to the "production today" section because it does not relate to the section it is in now which is "harvesting opium." I wanted to discuss it with other editors before changed it. Rayana fazli 18:14, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

A recent proposal from the European Senlis Council hopes to solve the problems caused by the massive quantity of opium produced illegally in Afganistan, most of which is converted to heroin, and smuggled for sale in Europe and the USA. This proposal is to licence 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 industrialised world the USA is the world's biggest consumer of prescription opiates, with Italy one of the lowest. The Italian medical profesion seems to have recently accepted that opiates have applications apart from pain relief in terminal cancer. Recorded Italian consumption has increased considerably of late.

To this end Senlis arranged a conference in Kabul, to discuss the idea, but it remains to be seen if this will happen; internal security and corruption issues within Afghanistan make it unlikely that they soon will be able to meet the stringent UN requirements for legal production of opiates for export. If the record of CIA interference with attempts to "buy and burn" illicit Burmese opium harvests in the past is considered (McCoy, 1991), Afghanistan's opium may be a major part of current War on Drugs policies for some time.

Testimony

The following by User:64.229.133.117 is too personal for Wikipedia.

Added December 21, 2003:

I have smoked opium for the past few days and can say that the effects are mild and uninteresting (sort of like marijuana) but highly addictive, and you crave it the next day. I'm glad I ran out and I won't be getting more!

Yes, that's a...violation of the NPOV...and it's kind of creepy that someone would smoke an addictive substance just to gain insight into an online encyclopedia article. It’s probably just sarcastic vandalizing, anyway.

sometimes called GOM, an acronym for "God's own medicine" This is cute, but does it have to be in the very first sentence? Wetman 23:02, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

It says Opium tea rarely leads to addiction. That is probablu because people making tea have limited supply of pods. It is as addictive as all other forms of Opium, and the article should be corrected.

From laurelbush1952@hotmail.com (Laurel Bush, 16 Kennedy Terrace, UK, KW14 5BN) 2005 January 21st

Im finding no reason for the 1729 Chinese prohibition of opium. Was the official reason then that given in the 1810 decree? And is there evidence from 1729 of what we might now recognise as a distinction between medical and recreational use? Was there licensing of select professions (eg 'doctors') to supply opium?

Was China the first country to legislate against opium use? Is China the birth place of modern drug control legislation?

Opium in the middle ages

I'm interested in how a person may ingest opium in the middle ages, particualry a quick form. This is research for a novel.

Robert Carnegie, Scotland; rja.carnegie@excite.com ; 15th November 2005

http://opioids.com/timeline/ represents a history of opium deviating somewhat from the article here, particularly in American legislation - they say taxed in 1840, smoking in public banned in San Francisco 1874, taxed again in 1890, "1905 U.S. Congress bans opium" - during a sitting anyway :-)

I also think more could be said about opium in China; I've fiddled with it but I'm not qualified to rewrite it. But it's plainly absurd to talk about "Chinatowns" and then about China, when the dates given are the opposite way around.

As for earlier historic use, apparently on Cyprus they were smoking as well as eating it as early as 1100 BC; Hippocrates had something to say about it; morphine is produced "by dissolving it in acid then neutralizing it with ammonia" in 1803 - Germans are such clever chemists! If a middle-ages quick hit is still wanted, perhaps you could stretch a point and bring in an anachronistic alchemist, or just drive a person out of their wits another way. Nutmeg in quantity is a hallucinogen and toxin, I don't know how fast-acting, and it's just the time for ergotism ("dancing mania").

Ongoing Vandalism

While I understand why this might be a target for vandalism (though it would seem that Heroin would be a more likely target), who is the bright light who keeps insisting that opium isn't addictive, and what are they smoking? Haikupoet 02:37, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi;

The way I had been reverting vandalism is:

click on "Revision as of 16:25, 31 May 2005"

edit page

save

Somehow I botched this on the opium article and reverted to a already-vandalised page. Thanks for noticing and correcting my mistake. You can also play around with the "history" tab, comparing earlier page versions. Your version of 19:43, 31 May 2005 looks fine to me. My own, and the vandals, recent revisions on 31 May 2005 should be disregarded. The last good version prior to yours looks like that of 20:31, 30 May 2005 by Rx StrangeLove. It includes some additional discussion of the addiction syndrome that we may want to include.

--Tom harrison 11:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In fact, smoking or eating opium isn't especially addictive for most people (but then neither is it all that pleasant an experience, speaking from my own - even opium tea makes me pretty ill). Certainly less so than, say, wikipedia editing (and many other Internet-centred behaviours). Keep in mind that the history and legal status of contraband drugs in general and opium in particular is full of wild exaggeration, racist and political motivation, and very little good information. Heroin is more habit-forming than opium or morphine, but still not all it's cracked up to be (crack, on the other hand, is something I understand to be pretty nasty, as are stimulants in general). The reasons people compulsively abuse substances (among other behaviours) tend to have more to do with where the people are at than the nature of the substance. - toh 23:30, 2005 August 11 (UTC)

Currency Conversion

I added the euro to usd conversion. This the english Wikipedia and it needs to be expressed in terms of monetary value that are used here. The euro is not used here. Will add currency link.Dakota 20:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

What is cocaine and opium

what are the affects of cocaine and opium when smoked? a friend of mine has started doing this.

Smoking both together? Mixing stimulants (i.e. cocaine) and depressants (i.e opium) together is known as a speedball, and is bad news, and has caused a good number of (famous) drug related deaths. It carries a large overdose risk as the effects of one drug will generally wear off before the other, causing a delayed-reaction overdose effect. The combination can also be very hard on the heart, and can lead to heart attack. Risks of death aside, according to the "experts" (hard core drug users), the speedball is also the most addictive drug combination, and if you've never tried it, it should be avoided at all costs. --Thoric 15:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Well whatever it is he's calm on it like when he use to smoke meth, he said it was cocaine and opium and he called it a lemonhead maybe he's not telling me what it really is??

Strong pain precludes dependence??

I removed the sentence "Strong pain is so stimulating itself that dependence when treating strong pain is rare" and then I adjusted the previous sentence for clarity.

I removed the sentence because it didn't make sense to me -- once the opium removes the pain, it would remove that stimulation, and therefore it would remove the very thing that is claimed to preclude dependency -- wouldn't it clear its own path to dependency?

Please leave the sentence out, or put it back and provide a citation, per Wikipedia policy.

I'm also wondering about the word "euphoric" in the previous sentence. Should it be "anti-dysphoric"? In other words, is dependency just as likely, or is it less likely, when a person uses opium to move from anxiety or depression to neutrality, than when a person uses it to move from neutrality to euphoria?

I agree with the removal of "strong pain [...] rare". It smells like original research. Has research confirmed that increased endorphin release protects against addiction?

As for euphoric, its use is correct. "Euphoric" can be used both in active and passive form. Something that improves moods (eu- = "good") is called a euphoric, despite the fact that euphory itself is more than just a "normal" or "good" mood. I agree it's not very clear. JFW | T@lk 23:05, 3 December 2005 (UTC)