History of Opium
Opium is a narcotic drug prepared from the juice of the opium poppy, Pa paver somniferum, a plant probably indigenous in the south of
Europe and western Asia, but now so widely cultivated that its original habitat is uncertain. The medicinal properties of the juice have been recognized from a very early period.
It was known to Theophrastus and appears in his time to have consisted of an extract of the whole plant, since Dioscorides, about A.D. 77, draws a distinction between it and an extract of the entire herb derived from the capsules alone. From the 1st to the 12th century the opium of Asia Minor appears to have been the only kind known in commerce. In the
13th century opium is mentioned by Simon
Januensis, physician to Pope Nicholas IV., while meconium was still in use. In the 16th century opium is mentioned by Pyres (1516) as a production of the kingdom in Bengal, and of
Malwai. Its introduction into India appears to have been connected with the spread of Islam.
The opium monopoly was the property of the Great Mogul of Persia and was regularly sold. In the 17th century Kaempfer describes the various kinds of opium prepared in Persia, and states that the best sorts were flavoured with spices and called theriaka. These preparations were held in great estimation during the middle ages, and probably supplied to a large extent the place of the pure drug. Opium is said to have been introduced into China by the Arabs probably in the 13th century, and it was originally used there as a medicine. In a Chinese Herbal compiled before 1700 both the plant and its juice are described, together with the mode of collecting it, and in the General History of the Southern Provinces of Yunnan, revised and republished in 1736, opium is noticed as a common product. The first edict prohibiting opium smoking was issued by the emperor Yung Cheng in 1729. Up to that date the amount imported did not exceed 200 chests, and was usually brought from India by junks as a return cargo. In the year 1757 the monopoly of opium cultivation in India passed into the hands of the East India Company through the victory of Clive at Plassey. Up to 1773 the trade with China had been in the hands of the Portuguese, but in that year the East India Company took the trade under their own charge.
The Opium Wars were a series of three wars between the Chinese and the British; primarily fought in regard to the illegal trade of opium in China during the 19th century. They manifested the conflicting natures of both nations and demonstrated China’s misconceptions of its own superiority. The Opium Wars resulted in the humiliating defeat of the Chinese to a country they considered to be “barbarians”.
Where did this drug come from and what makes it different from any other drug that is on the market? Heroin's origins go back long before Christ was a bleep on the radar. It goes back to 1200 B.C. Or the Bronze Age. At that time how ever heroin would be known as its chemically altered state of the poppy seeds. Even at that time however the ancient peoples of that time knew that if the poppy seeds juice were collected and dried. the extract that was left behind could make a effective painkiller. This would later be named opium. There were small incidents of it appearing in Europe, for instance it was used by the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. But as a whole it would take more then a millennium for opium to travel from the Middle East to the Europe. This only occurred do to crusades. In just a few hundred after that is went from a rarely used painkiller to a liquid that was said to cure all aliments and would even lead to the most humiliating defeat China Empire. In the 1803 opium became dwarfed by its new brother morphine which is named in honor of the Greek god Morpheus who is the god of dreams. Morphine is an extract of opium and is ruffly 10 times the strength of its counter part. After Morphine creation it was put to used almost at once to assist battle field victims. This was a mistake however, because this refined does of opium is also 10 times more addicting then it was in its original form. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers would retur...
China was once the center of the world. Any other country in the world could not match China’s political prowess and economic strength. However, as time progressed China stagnated while other powers, especially those in Europe, were going through their industrial revolution were growing more powerful and were eager to break into the Chinese market. Great Britain was one European power that was eager to break into the Chinese market since China was one of the few if not only country that had a trade surplus with Great Britain. Great Britain then decided to sell non-textile products to China and started selling them opium. China was not pleased that their people were being exposed to addictive drugs that rendered their working class unable
There have been many different types of ordinances and laws that have been put into place to limit the use of either drugs or alcohol targeting minority groups in particular such as the Temperance Movement targeting African-Americans or even the San Francisco Opium Parlors city ordinance. The Temperance Movement was put in place to limit and regulate alcohol consumption. In the year of 1875 in the city of San Francisco, there were more than eight opium parlors within three city blocks of city hall; this would eventually lead to the first ordinance of its kind. The efforts of both the Temperance Movement and that between state and local levels of government who sought to control the use of opium amongst the Chinese could be defined as racially motivated.
The first law against drugs was made in year 1908 in Canada called the Opium Act of 1908. In the year1850 onwards there were many Chinese immigrants coming to Canada through British Columbia .These Chinese immigrants were a cheap source of labour to Canadian government. The consumption of opium by the Chinese immigrants was another way to gain income for the Canadian government by taxes on the opium manufacturing factories in1871. In late 1800s an...
LSD stands for Iysergic acid diethylamide. LSD is a hallucinate know to be the most powerful drug of this kind. LSD is commonly known as acid. This drug changes a person’s mental state by distorting the perception of reality to the point where at high doses hallucination occurs. Acid is derived from a fungus that grows on rye and other grains. It is semi-synthetic. It’s manufactured chemically in illicit laboratories, except for a small percent, which is produced legally for research.
Hanes, William Travis, and Frank Sanello. Opium Wars: the Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. Naperville, IL: Source, 2002. Print.
Allingham,, Philip V. "England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60." The Victorian Web: An Overview. 24 June 2006. Web. 06 Apr. 2011.
MDMA, or Ecstasy, was first made in a lab in Germany in 1912. The German pharmaceutical company E. Merck patented it in 1914, not as a medicine, but as a chemical for making more useful drugs later on. MDMA was forgotten until 1953, when the United States Army funded a secret University of Michigan study to develop chemical weapons. After learning that MDMA was non-toxic, the government put it back on the shelf. Rumor says that the drug was tested for mind control purposes, or as a “truth drug”, but there is not actual evidence of that.
Ecstasy is Methylene Dioxymethamphetamine, often abbreviated as MDMA. This drug is a member of the same family of drugs that include amphetamine and LSD. I once believed that ecstasy was a mixture of methamphetamine and LSD, but as I researched, I found out that it has its own chemical structure. Ecstasy is not a mixture of other drugs; it is something all its own.
Methylenedioxymethamhetamine, the compound used in the drug Ecstasy, was developed in Germany in 1914 as an intermediary substance to pave the way to alternative therapeutic medicines. Presently, MDMA is used for a subculture in America and all over the world of "ravers" who spend their weekends taking this unique drug because of its seemingly mind- expanding properties. The truth about this drug is that it fools the body's senses by releasing too much serotonin and possibly permanently damaging important nerve cells in the process.
Opium, the first opioid, is derived from the sap of opium poppies, whose growth and cultivation dates back to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia around 3400 BC. Egyptians and Persians initially used opium. Eventually spreading to various parts of Europe, India, China, and the Middle East. During the 18th century, physicians in the U.S. used opium as a therapeutic agent for multiple purposes, including relieving pain in cancer, spasms from tetanus, and pain attendant to menstruation and childbirth. It was merely towards the end of the 18th century that some physicians came to recognize the addictive quality of opium.
The China today – powerful and ever-growing wasn’t always like this. One major event in history around the mid 1800s that we all have seemed to have forgotten was the Opium Wars. What really caused the opium war was when China wanted to halt all trades about opium with the British.
Ecstasy is one of the street names for MDMA (the chemical name is N-Methyl-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine). MDMA is an amphetaminelike drug with hallucinogenic properties. People taking the drug get a sense of increased energy, euphoria and a curious feeling of empathy. While we know something about the short-term effects of ecstasy use, we do not have a very good understanding of the long-term effects. The short-term effects of the drug are related to the amount taken. If the dose used is relatively high, there is a danger in the short-term of seizures and heart-rhythm abnormalities. Ecstasy also can cause an increase in body temperature (called hyperthermia). This can cause difficulties if the drug is taken during strenuous exercise (such as dancing). The common practice of drinking large amounts of bottled water can lead to a reduced amount of sodium in the blood. This is called hyponatremia and, if severe, can cause neurological problems. There have been a number of deaths reported in people taking the drug.
Gregorio Lopez Mr. Locks British Lit 4/7/14 The First Opium War and its aftermath on Chinese To the normal Chinese man during the early 19th century, opium was nothing more than a luxury that only those of higher power or influence could indulge themselves in. Yet by the middle of the 19th century opium had become a commodity that everyone could have and that at the same time they seemed to need. Even though it was now such a big part of the normal chinese culture, it did not benefit the people nor Chinese culture, it did not benefit the people or the government. The only benefit it did seem to have was towards the British.