Opium History 101

In 1520, possibly 3000 years after opium was first used medicinally, amedical man, name of Paracelsus, promoted a mixture of opium, wine and various spices as a curative for darn near anything. He called it laudanum. Laudanum remained popular and acceptable in Europe some 400 years.

When the British conquered Bengal in India in 1773, the British East India Company found itself in possession of lots and lots of really good opium.What the British wanted was Chinese tea. China became flooded with opium in exchange for their tea and non-medicinal smoking of it became quite a problem. In 1799, the Chinese Emperor banned smoking and importing opium.

England meanwhile continued to drink laudanum and still found it respectable. They found smoking opium degenerate, but it still happened of course. Laudanum was cheaper than gin or beer and was generally praised as a mood elevator. Scarce mention of opium as a habit was made before it was further refined into morphine. Much like today, those who smoked (today shoot) were seen as degenerate or lower class folks. It is scarcely speculated that they were habitual users because they were miserable, oppressed, or believed they were. It was seen as a trait of a different sort of person than the respectable laudanum drinker.

Pain relief got better, and habit got worse in 1803. That year, Frederick Serturner, a German, isolated an opium alkaloid and called it Morphine, after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Codeine was isolated in 1832. It was not as potent as morphine. These were known as opiates. There was more to come.

The syringe was invented in the 1850s and morphine injection became quite the rage as pain killer. This coincided with the American civil war and lots of soldiers got a habit out of the deal.

Back in Germany in 1898, the Bayer company, who make aspirin now, refined morphine into heroin and thought that it was free of the addictive quality of morphine. Incorrect.

In 1906, The Pure Food and Drug Act here at home required the words "habit-forming" on containers of opium-based medicines and remedies. The Harrison Narcotics act of 1914 banned non-prescription products containing opium and marijuana and cocaine. Possession of opiates became a crime.

In 1939, along came Demerol (meperidine) and it proved addicting too. It is a synthesized opiate. In the late 1970s, along came endorphins (endogenous morphine). No, they were not wonder drugs. Endogenous means grown within. There is a bunch of them; our own natural opiates.

Prevention 101

Endorphins answered a number of questions about opiate habits. Basically, if you show up your natural pain killer/euphoria-producer with huge amounts from opium absorption, they will take a break and you will be left high and dry when the opiate wears off. This is no state to be in. You need your endorphins on the job and fit as a fiddle or you feel like crap. So don't be using opiates recreationally. Oh, endorphins will mosey back when you kick, sure. But you have to get re-conditioned to a natural level of pain killer/euphoria-producer. It's a long, tough road to hoe. Vacationing endorphins are not the only cause or symptom of narcotic withdrawal, either. It's like 10 days of various unpleasant and debilitating miseries.

Intervention 101

Speculation is that the brain found opium products so similar to its own chemistry that there was no way to avoid opiumÕs popularity. Merely for argument, I postulate that the mammalian brain learned from opium; that endorphines evolved after use of opium. Just a thought.

source: Messengers of Paradise, Opiates and the Brain by Charles E. Leventhal (New York, Doubleday, 1988)