Smoking opium does not involve the pyrolysis of the material as might be imagined. Instead, the opium is indirectly heated to temperatures at which the active alkaloids, chiefly morphine, are vaporized. In the past, users would lie down with specially designed pipes which had long stems and a metallic receptacle. A small quantity of opium up to the size of a pea would be placed in the receptacle and the material heated indirectly with a candle or lamp. The smoker would lie on his side and inhale the vaporized morphine. The pipe was generally 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 needed. The pea sized opium could be sufficient for up to an hour of intermittent use.
Opium is more traditionally consumed in the form of paregoric to treat diarrhea. It was also used in the form of laudanum, an alcoholic tincture which was frequently used as a pain medication. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is widely known to have composed his incomplete poem Kubla Khan while intoxicated with laudanum. The majority of opium imported into the country is broken down into its alkaloid constituents. They are divided into two distinct chemical classes, phenanthrenes and isoquinolines. The main phenanthrenes are morphine, codeine, and thebaine, while the isoquinolines have no significant central nervous system effects and are not regulated by the Controlled Substances Act. Opium is also processed into heroin, and the majority of current use occurs with processed derivatives rather than with raw opium.
Chemical properties and physiological effects
Opium contains two groups of alkaloids: phenanthrenes (such as morphine and codeine) and benzylisoquinolines (including papaverine). Morphine is undeniably the most prevalent and important alkaloid in opium, consisting of 10%-16% of the total. It binds to and activates μ-opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, stomach and intestine. Daily use may lead to physical tolerance and dependence. Many degrees of psychological addiction can occur, though this is relatively rare when opioids are taken for treatment of pain, rather than for euphoric effects. These mechanisms result from changes in nervous system receptors in response to the substance. The brain creates new receptors for opioids. These receptors are "pseudo" receptors and are not efficient. When the opioids are out of the body, the brain has the same quantity of endogenous opioid (endorphins) to fill these receptors, but less of the functional receptors and more non-functional ones. Abstaining from the substance for a while allows the brain to replace the pseudo receptors with functioning ones (a gradual process).
Production today
Since being widely outlawed, the production of opium has significantly dropped around the world, despite an increasing demand. Opium continues to be produced today legally for medicine. Afghanistan is, at the moment, the number one producer of the substance. During Taliban rule, the production of opium significantly dropped to 74 metric tons per year, but after the toppling of the Taliban by the Northern Alliance with foreign support in 2001, production has raised again. Opium exports make up a very important portion of Afghanistan's GDP, alongside natural gas and agriculture. According to DEA statistics, Afghanistan's production of oven-dried opium rose to 1,278 metric tons in 2002 shortly after the U.S. led invasion. Recent DEA statistics demonstrate that production more than doubled by 2003, and almost doubled again during 2004. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated a 6,100 tons harvest of opium in year 2006 alone, and considers Afghanistan accountable for 92% of the world's opium supply. In late 2004, the CIA predicted that 206,000 hectares were under poppy cultivation and that the new crop would generate 7 billion dollars worth of heroin.
Besides Afghanistan, smaller amounts of opium are produced in Pakistan, the Golden Triangle area of Southeast Asia (especially Myanmar), Colombia and Mexico. Opium is generally not transported and sold raw. Instead, specialized chemical factories are used to convert it into heroin - a much more potent and compact form of the substance.
History of opium
Ancient usage
The image of the poppy capsule was an attribute of gods, way before opium was extracted from its milky latex. At the Metropolitan Museum's Assyrian relief gallery, a winged god in a bas-relief from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, dedicated in 879 BC, bears a bouquet of poppy capsules on long stems, described by the museum as "pomegranates".
Modern usage
Until the practice of smoking was introduced to Europe and Asia after tobacco smoking in the Americas was seen and copied, opium was mainly either eaten or drunk. An early form of opium smoking involved the use of madak, a blend of tobacco and opium that became usual in Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 19th century, in part because of an interdiction on madak in China, smoking of pure opium became more usual. By this time, opium consumption had become widespread across much of the world, although consumption patterns and ways of administration varied.
Starting with territorial conquest in India (in 1757), the British East India Company pursued a monopoly on opium production and export in India. This was met with varying degrees of success, but had an important impact on the peasant cultivators (ryots) who were frequently coerced or offered cash advances on their crops to encourage cultivation. This was something that was not done for any other crops, save for indigo. The product was sold by the chest in auctions in Calcutta and smuggled into China. The East India Company used the profit to buy teas which were in high demand in Britain.
An opium den in the China Town, Kolkata, India 1945
Because of the growing British demand for Chinese tea, and the Chinese refusal to accept payment other than silver bullion, the British sought to substitute another commodity for which China was not self sufficient to alleviate the silver drain, which was starting to cause a burden on the British economy. Opium was successfully used by the British traders to replace silver in exchange for Chinese tea for several decades. Many Chinese became addicted to opium, wreaking havoc among China’s population. In response, the Imperial Qing dynasty stopped the import of opium, asking for silver be traded instead. This response led to the Opium Wars, the British not willing to substitute the inexpensive opium with costly silver. The first opium war led to Britain seizing Hong Kong and to what the Chinese name the "century of shame". This illicit trade became one of the world's most valuable single commodity trades. A lot of important American fortunes were built in the opium trade, including those of John Jacob Astor (partially and briefly), John Kerry (from his Forbes grandfather), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (from his Delano grandfather).
Opium use throughout nineteenth-century Britain was usual since it could be obtained legally for the purpose of killing pain. Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is one of the first books accounts of opium addiction written from the point of view of an addict. He writes about the great English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, another famous literary opium dependant. By the end of the century, references to opium and opium addiction abound in English literature, as can be glanced at, for example, in the first few paragraphs of Charles Dickens's unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Oscar Wilde's only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short-story 'The Man With the Twisted Lip' are other examples.
Later, Opium smoking became related with immigrant Chinese communities around the world, with "opium dens" being run by Lascars and becoming notorious fixtures of several Chinatowns.
Modern prohibition
There were no legal restrictions on the importation or consumption of opium in the United States until a San Francisco, California ordinance which suspended the smoking of opium in opium dens in 1875. The Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 forbade its importation. Other major legislation included the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914. Before this time, medicines frequently contained opium without any warning label. U.S president William Henry Harrison was treated with the substance in 1841. Countless miracle remedies contained opium, which of course was the reason several of these were so successful, since people started taking these cures because they made them feel good. Opium was even used as an alcoholism cure, obviously to the wives of alcoholics. This would be because an opium addict, capable of supporting his habit on about 5 cents a day, would most likely be a more suitable companion for a wife—being placid and calm, mainly—than an alcoholic husband. Currently, there are several national and international laws governing the production and distribution of narcotic substances. In particular, morphineArticle 23 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs requires opium-producing countries to designate a government agency to take physical possession of legal opium crops as soon as possible after harvest and conduct all wholesaling and exporting through that agency. Opium's pharmaceutical use is strictly controlled worldwide and non-pharmaceutical uses are usually banned.
Opium poppies are popular and attractive garden plants, whose flowers vary widely in color, size and form. A modest quantity of domestic cultivation in private gardens is not generally subject to legal controls. The dried seed cases are frequently used for decorations, and the small seeds themselves—which contain negligible quantities of any opioid alkaloids—are a common and flavoursome topping for breads and cakes.
Medicinal uses
Opium has been an important item of trade for centuries, and has long been used as a painkiller and sedative. Several patent medicines of the 19th century were based around laudanum (known as "tincture of opium", a solution of opium in ethyl alcohol). As a consequence of this drug being
branded a miracle cure for many common illnesses (ranging from colds to alcoholism), the substance developed a very large number of addicts at the time. Fortunately for these addicts, they did not lose their jobs or much of their respectability as a consequence of this, and opium dependence was considered more similar to a gambling or alcohol addiction. Also, since a man could be an opium addict on 5 cents a day, it did not create undue financial strain, and therefore no damage to the person was caused that one living under an 'addict' lifestyle in the modern sense would risk suffering. Tincture of opium is currently prescribed, among other reasons, for ongoing, important diarrhea caused, for example, by the creation of an ileostomy. A 10% tincture of opium solution (10% opium, 90% ethyl alcohol) taken half an hour before meals will significantly slow intestinal motility, giving the intestines greater time to absorb fluid in the stool..
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