Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: Lachryma papaveris) is dried latex obtained from the

seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum.[4] Approximately 12 percent of opium is
made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and
other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade. The latex also contains the
closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, and non-analgesic alkaloids such
as papaverine and noscapine. The traditional, labor-intensive method of obtaining the latex is to
scratch ("score") the immature seed pods (fruits) by hand; the latex leaks out and dries to a sticky
yellowish residue that is later scraped off and dehydrated. The word meconium (derived from the
Greek for "opium-like", but now used to refer to newborn stools) historically referred to related,
weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies. [5]
The production methods have not significantly changed since ancient times. Through selective
breeding of the Papaver somniferum plant, the content of the phenanthrene alkaloids morphine,
codeine, and to a lesser extent thebaine has been greatly increased. In modern times, much of the
thebaine, which often serves as the raw material for the synthesis
for oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and other semisynthetic opiates, originates from
extracting Papaver orientale or Papaver bracteatum.
For the illegal drug trade, the morphine is extracted from the opium latex, reducing the bulk weight
by 88%. It is then converted to heroin which is almost twice as potent,[6] and increases the value by a
similar factor. The reduced weight and bulk make it easier to smuggle.

History[edit]
The Mediterranean region contains the earliest archeological evidence of human use; the oldest
known seeds date back to more than 5000 BCE in the Neolithic age[7] with purposes such as
food, anaesthetics, and ritual. Evidence from ancient Greece indicates that opium was consumed in
several ways, including inhalation of vapors, suppositories, medical poultices, and as a combination
with hemlock for suicide.[8] Opium is mentioned in the most important medical texts of the ancient
and medieval world, including the Ebers Papyrus and the writings of Dioscorides, Galen,
and Avicenna. Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued through the American Civil
War before giving way to morphine and its successors, which could be injected at a precisely
controlled dosage.

Ancient use (pre-500 CE)[edit]

A little of it, taken as much as a grain of ervum is a pain-easer, and a sleep-causer, and a digester...but being drank too
much it hurts, making men lethargical, and it kills.
Dioscorides, Introduction to The Herbal of Dioscorides the Greek

Poppy crop from the Malwa in India (probably Papaver

somniferum var. album[1])
Opium has been actively collected since approximately 3400 BCE.[9]
At least 17 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 Murciélagos, or "Bat Cave", in Spain), which has been carbon-14
dated to 4200 BCE. Numerous finds of P. somniferum or P. setigerum from Bronze Age and Iron
Age settlements have also been reported.[10] The first known cultivation of opium poppies was
in Mesopotamia, approximately 3400 BCE, by Sumerians, who called the plant hul gil, the "joy
plant".[11][12] Tablets found at Nippur, a Sumerian spiritual center south of Baghdad, described the
collection of poppy juice in the morning and its use in production of opium.[1] Cultivation continued in
the Middle East by the Assyrians, who also collected poppy juice in the morning after scoring the
pods with an iron scoop; they called the juice aratpa-pal, possibly the root of Papaver.[13] Opium
production continued under the Babylonians and Egyptians.
Opium was used with poison hemlock to put people quickly and painlessly to death. It was also used
in medicine. Spongia somnifera, sponges soaked in opium, were used during surgery.[11] The
Egyptians cultivated opium thebaicum in famous poppy fields around 1300 BCE. Opium was traded
from Egypt by the Phoenicians and Minoans to destinations around the Mediterranean Sea,
including Greece, Carthage, and Europe. By 1100 BCE, opium was cultivated on Cyprus, where
surgical-quality knives were used to score the poppy pods, and opium was cultivated, traded, and
smoked.[14] Opium was also mentioned after the Persian conquest of Assyria and Babylonian lands in
the 6th century BC.[1]
From the earliest finds, opium has appeared to have ritual significance, and anthropologists have
speculated ancient priests may have used the drug as a proof of healing power.[11] In Egypt, the use
of opium was generally restricted to priests, magicians, and warriors, its invention is credited to
Thoth, and it was said to have been given by Isis to Ra as treatment for a headache. [1] A figure of the
Minoan "goddess of the narcotics", wearing a crown of three opium poppies, c. 1300 BCE, was
recovered from the Sanctuary of Gazi, Crete, together with a simple smoking apparatus. [14][15]
The Greek gods Hypnos (Sleep), Nyx (Night), and Thanatos (Death) were depicted wreathed in
poppies or holding them. Poppies also frequently adorned statues
of Apollo, Asclepius, Pluto, Demeter, Aphrodite, Kybele and Isis, symbolizing nocturnal oblivion.[1]

Islamic societies (500–1500 CE)[edit]

Opium users in Java during the Dutch colonial period, c. 1870

As the power of the Roman Empire declined, the lands to the south and east of the Mediterranean
Sea became incorporated into the Islamic Empires. Some Muslims believe hadiths, such as in Sahih
Bukhari, prohibits every intoxicating substance, though the use of intoxicants in medicine has been
widely permitted by scholars.[16] Dioscorides' five-volume De Materia Medica, the precursor
of pharmacopoeias, remained in use (which was edited and improved in the Arabic versions [17]) from
the 1st to 16th centuries, and described opium and the wide range of its uses prevalent in the
ancient world.[18]
Between 400 and 1200 CE, Arab traders introduced opium to China, and to India by 700.[19][1][12][20] The
physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi of Persian origin ("Rhazes", 845–930 CE) maintained a
laboratory and school in Baghdad, and was a student and critic of Galen; he made use of opium in
anesthesia and recommended its use for the treatment of melancholy in Fi ma-la-yahdara al-tabib,
"In the Absence of a Physician", a home medical manual directed toward ordinary citizens for self-
treatment if a doctor was not available.[21][22]
The renowned Andalusian ophthalmologic surgeon Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi ("Abulcasis", 936–1013
CE) relied on opium and mandrake as surgical anesthetics and wrote a treatise, al-Tasrif, that
influenced medical thought well into the 16th century.[23]
The Persian physician Abū ‘Alī al-Husayn ibn Sina ("Avicenna") described opium as the most
powerful of the stupefacients, in comparison to mandrake and other highly effective herbs, in The
Canon of Medicine. The text lists medicinal effects of opium, such as analgesia, hypnosis,
antitussive effects, gastrointestinal effects, cognitive effects, respiratory depression, neuromuscular
disturbances, and sexual dysfunction. It also refers to opium's potential as a poison. Avicenna
describes several methods of delivery and recommendations for doses of the drug.[24] This classic
text was translated into Latin in 1175 and later into many other languages and remained
authoritative until the 19th century.[25] Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu used opium in the 14th-century
Ottoman Empire to treat migraine headaches, sciatica, and other painful ailments.[26]

Reintroduction to Western medicine[edit]

Latin translation of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine, 1483

Manuscripts of Pseudo-Apuleius's 5th-century work from the 10th and 11th centuries refer to the use
of wild poppy Papaver agreste or Papaver rhoeas (identified as P. silvaticum) instead of P.
somniferum for inducing sleep and relieving pain.[27]
The use of Paracelsus' laudanum was introduced to Western medicine in 1527, when Philippus
Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known by the name Paracelsus, returned
from his wanderings in Arabia [dubious] with a famous sword, within the pommel of which he kept
"Stones of Immortality" compounded from opium thebaicum, citrus juice, and "quintessence of
gold".[12][28][29] 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. [30] The Canon of Medicine, the
standard medical textbook Paracelsus burned in a public bonfire three weeks after being appointed
professor at the University of Basel, also described the use of opium, though many Latin translations
were of poor quality.[28] Laudanum ("worthy of praise") was originally the 16th-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 ethanol, which Paracelsus has been
credited with developing.[19] 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 1660s, laudanum
was recommended for pain, sleeplessness, and diarrhea by Thomas Sydenham,[31] 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."[32] Use of opium as a cure-all was reflected in the formulation
of mithridatium described in the 1728 Chambers Cyclopedia, which included true opium in the
mixture.
Eventually, laudanum became readily available and extensively used by the 18th century in Europe,
especially England.[33] Compared to other chemicals available to 18th century regular physicians,
opium was a benign alternative to arsenic, mercury, or emetics, and it was remarkably successful in
alleviating a wide range of ailments. Due to the constipation often produced by the consumption of
opium, it was one of the most effective treatments for cholera, dysentery, and diarrhea. As a cough
suppressant, opium was used to treat bronchitis, tuberculosis, and other respiratory illnesses. Opium
was additionally prescribed for rheumatism and insomnia. [34] Medical textbooks even recommended
its use by people in good health, to "optimize the internal equilibrium of the human body".[19]
During the 18th century, opium was found to be a good remedy for nervous disorders. Due to its
sedative and tranquilizing properties, it was used to quiet the minds of those with psychosis, help
with people who were considered insane, and also to help treat patients with insomnia. [35] However,
despite its medicinal values in these cases, it was noted that in cases of psychosis, it could cause
anger or depression, and due to the drug's euphoric effects, it could cause depressed patients to
become more depressed after the effects wore off because they would get used to being high. [35]
The standard medical use of opium persisted well into the 19th century. US president William Henry
Harrison was treated with opium in 1841, and in the American Civil War, the Union Army used
175,000 lb (80,000 kg) of opium tincture and powder and about 500,000 opium pills.[1] During this
time of popularity, users called opium "God's Own Medicine".[36]
One reason for the increase in opiate consumption in the United States during the 19th century was
the prescribing and dispensing of legal opiates by physicians and pharmacists to women with
"female complaints" (mostly to relieve menstrual pain and hysteria).[34] Because opiates were viewed
as more humane than punishment or restraint, they were often used to treat the mentally ill. Between
150,000 and 200,000 opiate addicts lived in the United States in the late 19th century and between
two-thirds and three-quarters of these addicts were women.[37]
Opium addiction in the later 19th century received a hereditary definition. Dr. George Beard in 1869
proposed his theory of neurasthenia, a hereditary nervous system deficiency that could predispose
an individual to addiction. Neurasthenia was increasingly tied in medical rhetoric to the "nervous
exhaustion" suffered by many a white-collar worker in the increasingly hectic and industrialized U.S.
life—the most likely potential clients of physicians.[citation needed]

Recreational use in Europe, the Middle East and the US (11th to

19th centuries)[edit]

An artist's view of an Ottoman opium seller

Soldiers returning home from the Crusades in the 11th to 13th century brought opium with
them.[19] Opium is said to have been used for recreational purposes from the 14th century onwards in
Muslim societies. Ottoman and European testimonies confirm that from the 16th to the 19th
centuries Anatolian opium was eaten in Constantinople as much as it was exported to Europe.[38] In
1573, for instance, a Venetian visitor to the Ottoman Empire observed many of the Turkish natives of
Constantinople regularly drank a "certain black water made with opium" that makes them feel good,
but to which they become so addicted, if they try to go without, they will "quickly die". [39] From
drinking it, dervishes claimed the drugs bestowed them with visionary glimpses of future
happiness.[40] Indeed, the Ottoman Empire supplied the West with opium long before China and
India.[41]
Extensive textual and pictorial sources also show that poppy cultivation and opium consumption
were widespread in Safavid Iran[42] and Mughal India.[43]
England[edit]
In England, opium fulfilled a "critical" role, as it did other societies, in addressing
multifactorial pain, cough, dysentery, diarrhea, as argued by Virginia Berridge.[44] A medical panacea
of the 19th century, "any respectable person" could purchase a range of hashish pastes and (later)
morphine with complementary injection kit.[44]
Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822), one of the first and most
famous literary accounts of opium addiction written from the point of view of an addict, details the
pleasures and dangers of the drug. In the book, it is not Ottoman, nor Chinese, addicts about whom
he writes, but English opium users: "I question whether any Turk, of all that ever entered the
paradise of opium-eaters, can have had half the pleasure I had."[45] De Quincey writes about the
great English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), whose "Kubla Khan" is also
widely considered to be a poem of the opium experience. Coleridge began using opium in 1791 after
developing jaundice and rheumatic fever, and became a full addict after a severe attack of the
disease in 1801, requiring 80–100 drops of laudanum daily.[46]

China[edit]
Recreational use in China[edit]
See also: History of opium in China and Opium den

An opium den in 18th-century China.

The earliest clear description of the use of opium as a recreational drug in China came from Xu
Boling, who wrote in 1483 that opium was "mainly used to aid masculinity, strengthen sperm and
regain vigor", and that it "enhances the art of alchemists, sex and court ladies". He also described an
expedition sent by the Ming dynasty Chenghua Emperor in 1483 to procure opium for a price "equal
to that of gold" in Hainan, Fujian, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Shaanxi, where it is close to the western
lands of Xiyu. A century later, Li Shizhen listed standard medical uses of opium in his
renowned Compendium of Materia Medica (1578), but also wrote that "lay people use it for the art of
sex," in particular the ability to "arrest seminal emission". This association of opium with sex
continued in China until the end of the 19th century.
Opium smoking began as a privilege of the elite and remained a great luxury into the early 19th
century. However, by 1861, Wang Tao wrote that opium was used even by rich peasants, and even
a small village without a rice store would have a shop where opium was sold. [47]
It is important to note that "recreational use" of opium was part of a civilized and mannered ritual,
akin to an East Asian tea ceremony, prior to the extensive prohibitions that came later. [44] In places of
gathering, often tea shops, or a person's home servings of opium were offered as a form of greeting
and politeness. Often served with tea (in China) and with specific and fine utensils and beautifully
carved wooden pipes. The wealthier the smoker, the finer and more expensive material used in
ceremony.[44] The image of seedy underground, destitute smokers were often generated by anti-
opium narratives and became a more accurate image of opium use following the effects of large
scale opium prohibition in the 1880s.[44]
Prohibitions in China[edit]
Opium prohibition in China began in 1729, yet was followed by nearly two centuries of increasing
opium use. A massive destruction of opium by an emissary of the Chinese Daoguang Emperor in an
attempt to stop opium smuggling by the British led to the First Opium War (1839–1842), in which
Britain defeated China. After 1860, opium use continued to increase with widespread domestic
production in China. By 1905, an estimated 25 percent of the male population were regular
consumers of the drug. Recreational use of opium elsewhere in the world remained rare into late in
the 19th century, as indicated by ambivalent reports of opium usage.[44] In 1906, 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.[48] These figures from 1906 have been criticized as
overestimates.[49]

A Chinese opium house; photographed in 1902

Smoking of opium came on the heels of tobacco smoking and may have been encouraged by a
brief ban on the smoking of tobacco by the Ming emperor. The prohibition ended in 1644 with the
coming of the Qing dynasty, which encouraged smokers to mix in increasing amounts of opium. [1] In
1705, Wang Shizhen wrote, "nowadays, from nobility and gentlemen down to slaves and women, all
are addicted to tobacco." Tobacco in that time was frequently mixed with other herbs (this continues
with clove cigarettes to the modern day), and opium was one component in the mixture. Tobacco
mixed with opium was called madak (or madat) and became popular throughout China and its
seafaring trade partners (such as Taiwan, Java, and the Philippines) in the 17th century.[47] In
1712, Engelbert Kaempfer described addiction to madak: "No commodity throughout the Indies is
retailed with greater profit by the Batavians than opium, which [its] users cannot do without, nor can
they come by it except it be brought by the ships of the Batavians from Bengal and Coromandel."[20]
Fueled in part by the 1729 ban on madak, which at first effectively exempted pure opium as a
potentially medicinal product, the smoking of pure opium became more popular in the 18th century.
In 1736, the smoking of pure opium was described by Huang Shujing, involving a pipe made from
bamboo rimmed with silver, stuffed with palm slices and hair, fed by a clay bowl in which a globule of
molten opium was held over the flame of an oil lamp. This elaborate procedure, requiring the
maintenance of pots of opium at just the right temperature for a globule to be scooped up with a
needle-like skewer for smoking, formed the basis of a craft of "paste-scooping" by which servant girls
could become prostitutes as the opportunity arose.[47]
Chinese diaspora in the West[edit]
The Chinese Diaspora in the West (1800s to 1949) first began to flourish during the 19th century due
to famine and political upheaval, as well as rumors of wealth to be had outside of Southeast Asia.
Chinese emigrants to cities such as San Francisco, London, and New York City brought with them
the Chinese manner of opium smoking, and the social traditions of the opium den.[50][51] The Indian
Diaspora distributed opium-eaters in the same way, and both social groups survived as "lascars"
(seamen) and "coolies" (manual laborers). French sailors provided another major group of opium
smokers, having gotten the habit while in French Indochina, where the drug was promoted and
monopolized by the colonial government as a source of revenue. [52][53] Among white Europeans,
opium was more frequently consumed as laudanum or in patent medicines. Britain's All-India Opium
Act of 1878 formalized ethnic restrictions on the use of opium, limiting recreational opium sales to
registered Indian opium-eaters and Chinese opium-smokers only and prohibiting its sale to workers
from Burma.[54] Likewise, in San Francisco, Chinese immigrants were permitted to smoke opium, so
long as they refrained from doing so in the presence of whites. [50]
Because of the low social status of immigrant workers, contemporary writers and media had little
trouble portraying opium dens as seats of vice, white slavery, gambling, knife- and revolver-fights,
and 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 keno and sentenced to hard labor for opium possession. Due to this, both
the immigrant population and the social use of opium fell into decline. [55][56] Yet despite lurid literary
accounts to the contrary, 19th-century London was not a hotbed of opium smoking. The total lack of
photographic evidence of opium smoking in Britain, as opposed to the relative abundance of
historical photos depicting opium smoking in North America and France, indicates the
infamous Limehouse opium-smoking scene was little more than fantasy on the part of British writers
of the day, who were intent on scandalizing their readers while drumming up the threat of the "yellow
peril".[57][58]