5. Literature
I remember in March I was so excited to see the new Alice in Wonderland movie coming out. I’ve always found the story interesting and I decided to do some research on it and its original author, Lewis Carroll. I was surprised to find that it is popularly held that he was an avid opium user, and that the drug was probably a huge inspiration to the story’s imaginative world and characters. This is disputed by some – but laudanum was popular in his time so it is certainly not improbable that he used it. Authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, and Charles Dickens were all fans of the Opium Poppy’s inspirational potential, showing just how much of an impact a single plant has had on literature, especially notable in the 19th century. The Wizard of Oz, commonly referred to as one of the greatest and timeless films ever, comes from an opium inspired book. However, you might have been confused by the scene where Dorothy falls deeply asleep in the poppy field before Emerald City. But perhaps the most famous work inspired by opium use is Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – he was using opium to counter the effects of dysentery and in doing so dreamed up one of the most ravishing poems in the English language.
4. Wealth
Knowing that the outlawing of opium in China lead to two major wars, it’s obvious that the financial potential of the plant has been huge throughout history. From the opium harvesters of the past, to the Pharmaceutical Companies who use the poppy to produce medicine, to the common street heroin dealers, one thing is clear: Opium Poppy is a cash crop. It’s estimated that growing kilogram of opium costs a farmer about $300. He can sell that to a drug dealer for around $800, making him a hefty little profit. That dealer, after converting the opium to heroin, will make $16,000 on the same amount of product it took $300 and some help from nature to grow. An enjoyable modern depiction of this process is 2006’s “American Gangster”. A man goes from rags to riches after getting connecting from poppy farmers in Vietnam.
3. Pain Relief
While pain relief is of course a key to surgery, it goes much further than that. Opium has been used from the very beginning for its painkilling properties. In some parts of the world, there is no such thing as retirement. A man will work his whole life, and opium’s relief has sometimes been the only way to keep living. It’s been called “God’s own medicine”, and considered divine and sacred by many people. The two alkaloids in it that bind to out brain’s opioid receptors are morphine and codeine. Many opiate derivatives have been discovered from these; heroin (diacetylmorphine) and hydromorphone from morphine, and oxycodone and hydrocodone from codeine. Since these are semi-synthetic, these substances may start from the poppy, but have to be chemically structured in labs by Pharmaceutical Companies
2. Pharmaceutical Industries
Opium Poppy may be quite easy to grow, but its genetic properties have made pharmaceutical companies billions and billions of dollars. Bayer marketed Aspirin and Morphine as painkillers for uncontrolled use in the 19th century. The rose of morphine’s superiority to aspirin came with the thorn of its unforgiving addictiveness. Finally a solution, the rose without a thorn. A drug with the power of morphine that wouldn’t hook you: heroin! Well, you can guess what comes next, heroin (named for being thought of as a heroic substance) was found to be even more addictive. Opiates were criminalized in the United States, and used legally only when a medical doctor saw fit to let you. In the 20th century many other opium-derivatives were discovered, such as oxycodone (OxyContin, Percoset), hydrocodone (Lortab, Vicodin), and oxymorphone (Opana, Numorphan). Next time your doctor gives you medicine for your sore back or broken foot, chances are that medicine came from the Opium Poppy.
1. Addiction
This section really has little need for further description. Opium Poppy introduced society to one of the most harmful and abundant issues of today: drug addiction. With moderate, spiritual opium use addiction wasn’t an issue, but as time went on: chronic use, harmful ways of ingestion, and chemically altering the substance all helped see the downfall of the plant’s “divinity”. It may be the most useful, helpful, and peaceful thing in history. Or it may be the plant responsible for a father’s neglect or a brother’s death. Whichever way you look at it, the Opium Poppy is one of the most influential things to ever grace this Earth.
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