Opium Poppy History

There is a general agreement between many theorist, scientists and Pharmacologists that the Sumerians cultivated poppies and prepared opium from them in the third millennium B.C. (Brownstein 1) Opium and other drugs that derived from the poppy plant were widely used in religious practices for its euphoric properties. However, Opiates have been proven to have addictive qualities and toxic effects on the human body. This did not stop the wide spread demand for the drug. Since those early accounts of opioid use and addiction, the drug has traveled through the Middle East, Asia, and Europe like a plague and is currently a nationwide epidemic in the United States and has been for some time now.

The trend has started to evolve already, in 460 B.C. a Greek physician, also known as “The Father of Medicine”, named Hippocrates learns about the opium poppy plant. He notices that it is useful to treating internal diseases, for women and epidemics. Alexander the Great introduces the opium to the people of Persia and India around 330 B.C. Opium is now used by Arabs, Greeks, and Romans as a sedative and soporific. 400 A.D., opium thebaicum, from the Egyptian fields at Thebes, is first introduced to China by Arab traders. For a couple of hundreds of years opium had vanished from all the records. In 1500 it came back, Portuguese, while trading along the East China Sea, they started the smoking of opium. It was then reintroduced into the European

Opium is, “an extract of the exudate derived from seedpods of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum” (Opiates.net). Homer stated in The Odyssey, “ ...had a happy thought. Into the bowl in which their wine was mixed, she slipped a drug that had the power of robbing grief and anger of their sting and banishing all painful memories. No one who swallowed this dissolved in their wine could shed a single tear that day, even for the death of his mother or father, or if they put his brother or his own son to the sword and he were there to see it done...” Opium had been used for thousands of years for medicine and for pleasure. However, the potency and addictiveness of the drug was horribly underestimated. Its wildly pleasurable effects were hard to let go and the effects were disastrous. India, Britain and China had begun trading opium for various reasons, the British loved a tea that China produced, and in the beginning, opium appeared to be useful. However, the truth about this powerful drug was revealed and many lives were ruined by overdose, addiction and

Their ignorance as a government in the 1730’s led them to take extreme steps to stop the illegal trade by burning the British opium and trying to destroy the British ships in the 1830’s. China’s justification for allowing opium to be legal in 1729 can be viewed as the root of the opium wars.

Opium as a topic of discussion can lead to many arguments either for or against the introduction of the drug into the Chinese society. Initially, these opinions began to circulate upon its initial presentation to the people of China in the late eighteenth century and late nineteenth century when its popularity and reputation were rather miniscule and mysterious. On one side, arguments favored its legalization and actually praised its distributors because of the positive impact, albeit temporarily, for the people of China in a hallucinogenic manner and the importers from other countries, that it had overall. The other side of the spectrum aimed towards the complete ban of the drug and punishment for all users and

The humanity has been using alkaloids-containing extracts since ancient times. For example, there are reports on the use of opium since 3,400 BC. Opium (from Papaver somniferum) exudate is rich in tetrahydrobenzylisoquinoline alkaloids, as (5), codeine (6), and papaverine (7) (ref). Morphine is a potent analgesic and narcotic extensively used to treat both acute and chronic severe pain (Bercovitch et al., 1999). South American Indians have been using coca leaves (Erytrothroxylon coca; Erythroxylaceae) for over 4,000 years (ref), as a stimulant and energy source. Coca is known for its psychoactive alkaloid cocaine (8), whose medicinal use as tonic, for digestive disorders, weakness, aphrodisiac, in the treatment of asthma, alcohol and morphine

One of the best examples of herbal remedy use in Western Medicine would be the use of Opium in pain treatment. Opium is made by drying the “tears,” or latex from a opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) bulb before becoming mature. By cutting the bulb, the latex seeps out, therefore producing a solution containing various substances, most notoriously, the 12% by volume of alkaloid morphine, which is used as a method of chronic pain treatment, as well as the production of heroine. It was originally used in the 16th century to induce sleep and relieve pain, and was introduced to western medicine by a man of the name Paracelsus. It was only after reading the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarius book, a collection of herbs names and diseases, that he managed to

Before the opium war haven't start, British were shipping the opium to Guangzhou for many hundred years. In 600s chinese have no idea how to use the opium, they used swallowing it whole as a painkiller and a treatment for dysentery. Later on , opium became popular in China, chinese started to smoke opium in pipes. Smoking opium can affects their health, continual use opium resulted in addiction. Later on, opium spread in everywhere in china and the amount of opium chests increased by ship from british. The price of opium increased, only those wealthy people can able to buy it.

The start of the trade was contributed to the manipulation of the drug and the impact that the Chinese market had on the trade. Britain monopolized cultivation of opium poppies in India where it was easier to grow it was cheap and grown rapidly there. China traded goods for opium. Trade of Opium increased in consumption of opium and caused an increase in addiction of the drug. The prices

Synthetic narcotics are most commonly used by oral ingestion. They are abused by millions of people dating back to the Chinese history. Chinese smoked opium for hundreds of years before realizing that there was any danger of addiction or abuse occurring from the use of these drugs and even after they had realized the dangers, they still continued to abuse the substances. The upper class, dating back to the Hippocrates would use narcotics to alter their mood and reduce inhibitions. The ancient Egyptian writings, hieroglyphics, tell stories of the Egyptians using opium poppy for pain relief during child birth. When Edinburgh invented the hypodermic needle or syringe in 1853 opiates became much more widely used and abused. Millions of people abuse substances throughout the past 100 years or more in an effort

According to Tétényi, there is no one way the origin of the opium poppy that can be studied( 1996). Many scientists have hypothesized the phylogenetic origin of the poppy and the genus Papaver. The opium poppy plant has had a history with humans and seems to be found on in different

All opiates share unique characteristics in origin and the effects to the human body. They are known to alleviate pain and other serious discomforts to human kind. Since the third century, opiate usage can be traced back through linking of writings refereeing opium to poppy juice. In which the Greek term to opium is referred to as vegetable juice. By then, Arabian physicians were familiar with the medical usage opium and its healing traits. In the seventh century, Arabian traders introduced it to the Orient to assist at treating pain and diarrhea. It was during the sixteen century that Europe became aware of the medicinal use of opium and by the eighteen hundreds was available freely and could be purchased at the grocery stores. People from the working class would use opium as an expensive alternative to beer. Opium was sold at pubs and added directly to beer.

The cultivation increased so rapidly that at the beginning of the 20th century opium was produced in every province of China. The western provinces yielded and the other provinces produced nearly two thirds. Of this amount China required for home consumption, the remainder being chiefly exported to Indochina, while more foreign opium was imported into China. Of the whole amount of opium used in China and about one-seventh came from India.

the 7th Century A.D. in China a drug emerged called Opium. Opium, the dry juice

It has been found that opiates extracted from the opium poppy have been used for many centuries, as a remedy to all sorts of ailments, but more commonly as an analgesic. Various studies have found that opiates have been used since in and around possibly 2100 BC and almost certainly around 1300 BC. Objects discovered by archaeologists reveal much about the use of the opium poppy by the Minoan civilisation, for example, a statue