Opium: the denaturalization of a miracle medicine

Poppy (Papaver somniferum) is one of the oldest medicinal plants in the Afro-Eurasian world.

It is an annual herbaceous plant that grows naturally in Asia Minor and other regions of the Near and Middle East. Its seeds are edible and are not psychoactive. However, when scratching the capsule a gummy, milky material comes out that turns brown when hardened. This substance, which has very special properties, is called opium.

The poppy was domesticated in very ancient times. There are Sumerian records in Mesopotamia (6,000 or 7,000 years ago) that mention the poppy, and the Assyrian medicinal tablets refer to its healing power.

In the 17th century B.C. An Egyptian medical treaty prescribed opium for crying children, just as, many centuries later, Victorian nannies were to use opiates to calm babies.

Historically, opium was not smoked, but was rather drunk with wine or swallowed as pills. It was used to ease pain, achieve a state of euphoria, or as an aphrodisiac.

In ancient Crete the poppy was planted since Minoan times (third and second millennium before the common era).

There are ceramic jugs from the year 1,500 B.C. from Cyprus showing stylized incisions shaped like poppy pods. Ivory pipes from the 12th century B.C. have also been found. in a temple on the same island that is believed to have been used to inhale the opium vapors (one of the few examples of "smoking pipes" known in the Mediterranean, prior to the European expansion in America).

The Greek female deity Demeter, the Mother Goddess, was at the same time the Goddess of grains and poppies and was used as the main medicine in those of Aesculapius temples that were in ancient Greece.

In Greece and Rome opium was usually administered as a pain reliever. To that end, it was recommended by the founders of European medicine: Hippocrates (c.400 B.C.), Dioscorides and Galen (130-200 A.D.).

The potion Helen of Troy prepared in Homer's Odyssey "to silence pain and sorrow and bring oblivion to every malaise" is thought to have been prepared on the basis of poppy opium. Similarly, there are those who maintain that the vinegar mixed with "gall" that was offered to Christ on the Cross (Matthew 27:34) also contained this substance. It is symptomatic that in the ancient Hebrew language, the word used to designate the "gall", rôsh, was also used to denote opium.

From the 7th and 8th centuries, opium medicine was also part of the Islamic civilization. Arab traders spread the opium in Persia, India, the Malay country, and finally China.

In the year 1530 the Swiss-German physician Paracelsus developed a new type of medicine that, in a way, integrated classical and medieval practices. Paracelsus was an admirer of the powers of opium whom he called "the stone of immortality" that he always carried in "the pommel of the saddle".

The most important medicine based on opium was laudanum tincture, which is prepared by dissolving opium in alcohol. This recipe from Paracelsus was singularly successful spreading rapidly across the European continent.

For more than three centuries, laudanum was "the" medicine that could not be missing in any medical kit. Its consumption spread to the wealthy classes in all the states of the continent, to the society clubs of London and Paris and to the high political and military spheres. For most of the 19th century, most aristocrats had become fond of laudanum, that is, alcoholic opium.

The Muslim advance took the consumption of opium to India, a country that, in time, would end up being the world's largest poppy producer. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Mughal monarchs owed opium to soldiers, and the Emperor Shah Jahan himself, builder of the Taj Mahal, drank opium in his wine. Still today, in that country, construction workers and farm laborers put a small ball of opium in their mouth, swallowing it with their tea. However, in the Indian subcontinent, the consumption of opium never reached the social dimension that it would later reach in China, especially during the 19th century.

When the United States became independent, the United Kingdom lost control of the tobacco trade, for that reason realizing pragmatically that the military force did not allow them to recover their lost colonies, the British sought to reorient their production and trade.

For this, they had their new colonies in India. In the absence of tobacco, they took advantage of the existence of poppy plantations (opium could also be smoked), and began promoting markets for the new product in the Far East in particular] China.

The Chinese were not aware of opium, nor had they developed cultural modalities to control its consumption, and they were easy prey for cunning British merchants. Numerous "opium addicts" quickly appeared in China's major ports. "Opium dens" multiplied, leading to a cultural crisis in the gigantic country.

In the late 1830s, the emperor of China decided to ban the import of the substance. English merchants defied the imperial edict and introduced new shipments. The Chinese government replied by destroying the opium deposits near Canton.

As "retaliation" the English attacked China, in 1840 they took Dinghai and in 1842 they defeated the imperial army forcing the acceptance of a peace treaty (Nanking Treaty). This agreement established that the Chinese government would open the ports for foreign trade (especially for the trade in opium from the English colonies in India), and ceded control of the territory of Hong Kong to the British.

Opium consumption spread in European societies during the 18th and 19th centuries. During the last century mentioned it was transformed into a favorite medicine in the European royal houses. In the nineteenth century many artistic and intellectual personalities became fond of opiates: Goethe, Pushkin, Tolstoy and Goya among others regularly consumed it.

Without worrying too much about all the criticism and denunciations of opium and its addictive products, the big pharmaceutical companies continue to make succulent profits from their poppy plantations (which despite all the stereotypes and negative propaganda, are authorized, legitimized and promoted by the governments and international institutions).

The main industrial scale crops (controlled by two or three large pharmaceutical conglomerates) are found in India, which has been the traditional producer since the times when it was an English colony, on the island of Tasmania (Australia), and to a lesser extent in Turkey.

Indian plantations are tightly controlled. In them, workers must bathe before leaving the workplace so that not one microgram of opium "sticks" to the body. The safety standards of these establishments are analogous to those found at military sites where nuclear warheads are stored or at diamond deposits in South Africa.

The process of transnational and industrial control of the production of poppy and its derivatives is particularly visible in Turkey, which was for a long time a society traditionally used to its consumption. .

During the first half of the 20th century, as clandestine heroin trafficking developed, Turkey was the main supplier of opium to the Marseille processing market (the so-called "French connection").

The circuit collapsed in 1971 due to pressure from the United States. The Turkish government banned hash hash, greatly reducing France's supply of heroin.

Turkish peasants resented the ban, and political and social pressure forced the government to re-establish cultivation, albeit under very different rules.

First, the production of "not even a gram" of opium was further authorized, the (artisan) incision of the seed was strictly prohibited. In its place, gigantic alkaloid factories controlled by large pharmaceutical transnationals were established (particularly in Bolvadin, in Afyon province, on the eastern Anatolian plateau). These industrial plants process the dried poppy pods, which are crumbled and dissolved in stainless steel tanks. The process ends with the production of raw morphine concentrate. The product is then transported to the Izmir port for export. Most of it is transformed into codeine.

In this way, the peasants, and Turkish society in general, lost one of their oldest traditional agricultural resources. This passed into the hands of the transnational companies that manage their industrialization and trade. With clever excuses, the owners of the great global society of domination had seized another link in the chain of human culture.

Two of the world's main opium processing plants are in India in the cities of Ghazipur and Nimach. Thousands of opium "trays" (each containing 35 kilos) are prepared monthly at the Ghazipur plant, built by the English in 1820, for further export. India supplies about two thirds of all opiates required annually by pharmaceutical transnationals.

In Tasmania, the poppy is grown in huge computerized plantations, with poppy varieties that have been subjected to genetic manipulations of the most diverse nature, to increase their productivity and improve profits.

Poppy, the miracle plant

Opium, one of the most important substances in the medicinal history of mankind (Part 1)
Poppy (Papaver somniferum) is one of the oldest medicinal plants in the Afro-Eurasian world.
It is an annual herbaceous plant that grows naturally in Asia Minor and in other regions of the Near and Middle East. Its seeds are edible and are not psychoactive.
However, when the capsule is scratched, a milky, rubbery material comes out which, when hardened, turns brown. This substance, which has very special properties, is called opium.
The poppy was domesticated in ancient times. There are Sumerian records in Mesopotamia (6,000 or 7,000 years ago) that mention poppy, and Assyrian medicinal tablets refer to its healing power. In the 17th century B.C. an Egyptian medical treaty prescribed opium for children who cry, just as, many centuries later, the
Babysitters of the Victorian era would use opiates to calm babies.
Historically, opium was not smoked, but rather was drunk with wine or swallowed as pills. It was used to calm the pain, achieve a state of euphoria or as an aphrodisiac.
In ancient Crete the poppy was planted since Minoan times (third and second millennium before the common era).
There are ceramic jugs of the year 1,500 a.e.c. from Cyprus showing stylized incisions in the shape of poppy capsules18. Ivory pipes from the 12th century BC have also been found. in a temple on the same island that is thought to be used to inhale the vapors of opium (one of the few examples of "smoking pipes" that has been reported in the Mediterranean, before the European expansion in America).
The Greek female deity Demeter, the Mother Goddess, was at the same time Goddess of grains and poppies.
In Greece and Rome, opium was usually administered as a pain reliever. To that end it was recommended by the founders of European medicine: Hippocrates (c.400 BC), Dioscorides and Galen (130-200 AD).
It is thought that the potion that Helena de Troya prepared in the Odyssey of Homer "to silence the pain and grief and bring oblivion to every malaise" was prepared based on the opium of poppy. Similarly, some argue that the vinegar mixed with "gall" that was offered to Christ on the Cross (Matthew 27:34) also contained this substance. It is symptomatic that in the ancient Hebrew language, the word used to designate "gall", rôsh, was also used to refer to opium.
From the seventh and eighth centuries, opium medicine was also part of the Islamic civilization. Arab traders spread opium in Persia, India, the Malay country and finally China.
In 1530 the Swiss-German physician Paracelsus19 developed a new type of medicine that, in a way, integrated classical and medieval practices.
Paracelsus was an admirer of the opium powers he called "the stone of immortality" that he always carried on "the saddle knob."
The opium-based medicine that had the greatest significance was the laudanum tincture that is prepared by dissolving opium in alcohol. This recipe from Paracelsus was uniquely successful, spreading rapidly throughout the European continent. For more than three centuries the laudanum was "the" medicine that could not be missing in any medical kit. Its consumption extended to the wealthy classes in all the states of the continent, to the society clubs of London and Paris and to the high political and military spheres. During most of the nineteenth century most of the aristocrats had become fond of laudanum, that is, opium with alcohol.
The Muslim advance took the consumption of opium to India, a country that, over time, would end up being the world's largest poppy producer. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Mughal monarchs owe the soldiers opium, and Emperor Shah Jahan himself, builder of the Taj Mahal, drank opium in his wine. Even today, in that country, construction workers and farm laborers put a small ball of opium in their mouths ingesting it with their tea. However, in the Hindu subcontinent, opium consumption never reached the social dimension that it would later reach in China, especially during the Eleventh century.
(continued in Part 2)
Reproduced from the book "Peoples, drugs and serpents", Danilo Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones.

The major psychoactive plants

The major psychoactive factors include many substances, generally of plant origin. Below is a list of the main synthetic plants that have been used historically and psychoactive compounds extracted from them ends.

1.  Poppy ( Papaver somniferum ) is a herbaceous flowering plant from which opium-bearing seeds are obtained. It contains several active substances with psychoactive properties: morphine (from which heroin is extracted), codeine and others.

2.  Hemp ( Cannabis sativa ), also improperly called marijuana, is a, native to southern Asia shrubby plant, which has psychoactive alkaloids with well defined properties. Hashish is obtained.from cannabis

3.  Peyote ( peyote ) is a cactus whose main active ingredient is mescaine. The peyote grows in arid subtropical areas of North America.

4.  Teonanacatl ( Mexican Psilocybe and Stropharia cubensis ) is formed by several species of psychoactive mushrooms that grow in the mountains of Mesoamerica (Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guatemala). They contain psilocybin and psilocin

5.  Fly agaric ( Amanita muscaria ) is a psychoactive mushroom that grows in the Nordic and temperate mountain forests in Eurasia. It contains muscarine and muscimol.

6. Ayahuasca is an infusion prepared from a vine that grows in the Amazonian region. This vine called  Banisteriopsis caapi contains harmina13   (C 13 H 12 N 2 O), an alkaloid with strong sicoativas properties.

7. Ergot  ( Claviceps purpurea ) is a fungus that parasites rye, wheat and other grasses. It is strongly psychoactive and has significant toxicity that can be removed in its preparation. It is of Eurasian or North African origin. It contains several psychoactive alkaloids including lysergic acid, closely related to LSD-25 (d-lysergic acid diethylamide) the known synthetic psychedelic compound.

8.  Ololiuhqui ( Turbina corymbosa ), also called “seeds of the Virgin” is a vine found in Mexico whose seeds have visionary properties.Like the ergot alkaloids lysergic acid containing, with strongly psychoactive character.

9.  Aguacolla, also called San Pedro or giant ( Trichocereus pachanoi ) is a large-sized cactus (5-8 meters high) that grows in central and northwestern South Andes (Ecuador, Peru) America. Just as the peyote contains mescaline.

10. Coca is a very bushy plant of the Andean foothills in South America whose leaves contain numerous alkaloids, including cocaine.

11. Tobacco is a shrub native American origin grown in most of the native societies. It has several alkaloids, including nicotine.

12 Beleño ( Hyoscyamus niger ) is a herb of the family Solanaceae characteristic of Europe and the Mediterranean region. It contains tropane alkaloids, including hyoscyamine and scopolamine. The latter has visionary properties.

13. Belladonna ( Atropa belladonna ) is a typical European continent herbaceous plant of the family Solanaceae, which contains several tropane alkaloids including hyoscyamine and scopolamine.

14. Mandragora ( Mandragora officinarum ) is a herbaceous plant of European origin that has a thick and irregular root of anthropomorphic appearance. It contains several tropane alkaloids including hyoscyamine, scopolamine, atropine and mandragorina.

15. Iboga ( Tabernanthe iboga ) is a shrub of Central Africa whose roots are used for its visionary properties. It is a species of milkweed family, consisting of shrubs and trees characterized by their simple leaves, colorful flowers and a milky juice. It contains ibogaine and 11 more indole-alkaloids.

16.Syrian rue ( Peganum harmala ) is a small shrub native to the desert areas of the Mediterranean East. It contains beta-carboline alkaloids such as harmine, harmaline and harmine tetrahydro-with visionary properties.

17. Datura ( Datura inoxia ) is a perennial herb that can reach more than 1m high that grows in Mexico. The root is used, seeds and leaves lesser extent. It contains scopolamine and hyoscyamine.

 There are many other plants rich in alkaloids. Some of them are commonly used in industrial preparations and mass consumption (coffee, tea, chocolate, kola, mate, etc.) (see Chapter 6). Others are known only locally. Surely there are many whose properties are unknown. A complete list would include several thousand species.

From: Peoples, Drugs and Serpents, Danilo Anton, Piriguazú Ediciones

Opium and the poppy plant

Danilo Anton

Poppy (Papaver somniferum) is one of the oldest medicinal plants of the Afro-eurasian world.  It is an annual herbaceous plant that grows naturally in Asia Minor and other regions of the Near and Middle East. Its seeds are edibles and are not psychoactive. However, when the capsule is scratched, a milky, rubbery material seeps out which upon hardening turns brown. This substance, which has very special properties, is called opium.

Poppy was domesticated in ancient times. There are tablets in Sumer in Mesopotamia (6,000 or 7,000 years ago) that mention the poppy, and medicinal Assyrian tablets relate to its healing power. In the seventeenth century BC Egyptian doctors prescribed opium for children crying, just as many centuries later, the Victorian nannies would use opiates to calm babies.

Historically, opium was not smoked, but rather was drunk with wine or swallowed as pills. It was (and is) used to relieve pain, achieve a state of euphoria or as an aphrodisiac.

In ancient Crete poppy was planted from Minoan times (third and second millennium before the common era).

There are ceramic jars dating 1,500 bd in Cyprus showing stylized incisions in poppy capsules 18.. Twelve century BC ivory pipes were also found in a temple of the same island an it is thought they were used to inhale the fumes of opium (one of the few examples of "smoking pipes" that is reported in the Mediterranean before European expansion in America).

The Greek feminine deity Demeter, the Mother Goddess, was both goddess of grain and poppies.

In Greece and Rome opium was usually administered as a pain reliever. To this end it was recommended by the founders of the European medicine: Hippocrates (c.400 BC), Dioscorides and Galen (130-200 AD).

It is thought that the potion that prepared Helen of Troy in Homer's Odyssey " to quell the pain and sorrow and bring oblivion every discomfort" was prepared based on the opium poppy. Similarly, some argue that the vinegar mingled with "gall" offered to Christ in the cross (Matthew 27:34) also contained opium. It is symptomatic that in ancient Hebrew, the word used to designate the "gall" Rosh , referred also to opium.

From the seventh and eighth centuries, medicine opium was also part of the Islamic civilization. Arab traders spread the opium in Persia, India, the Malay region and finally China.

In 1530 the German-Swiss physician   Paracelsus developed a new type of medicine that somehow integrated classical and medieval practices. Paracelsus was a fan of the powers of opium which he called "the stone of immortality" and always carry it with him.

The opium-based drug that had more significance was the tincture laudanum. It was prepared by dissolving opium in alcohol.  Paracelsus had great success with this recipe spreading rapidly throughout Europe.

For more than three centuries laudanum was "the" medicine that could not miss in any medical kit.  Its use spread to the affluent classes in all the states of the continent, to the clubs of London and Paris and to high political and military spheres. For most of the nineteenth century most of the aristocrats had become fans of laudanum (ie opium and alcohol).

The Muslim advance carried opium consumption to India, which, over time, would end up being the largest producer of poppy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mogul monarchs gave opium to their soldiers, and emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, drunk opium in his wine. 

Even today, in India construction workers and agricultural laborers a small ball of opium into their mouths ingesting it with their tea. However, in the Indian subcontinent, opium consumption never reached the social dimension which would  later reach into China, especially during the nineteenth century during the Opium War.

From "Peoples, Drugs and Serpents", Danilo Anron, Piriguazu Ediciones. 

Blog in Spanish: daniloanton.blogspot.com