MacPherson, Duncan (1843). Two years in China. Narrative of the Chinese expedition, from its formation in April, 1840, to the treaty of peace in August, 1842. London, Saunders. Operational Medicine 2001 Field Medical Service School Student Handbook: Molle medical bag/surgical instrument set". December 7, 1999 . Retrieved June 27, 2007. Opium prohibition in China began in 1729, yet was followed by nearly two centuries of increasing opium use. A massive destruction of opium by an emissary of the Chinese Daoguang Emperor in an attempt to stop opium smuggling by the British led to the First Opium War (1839–1842), in which Britain defeated China. After 1860, opium use continued to increase with widespread domestic production in China. By 1905, an estimated 25 percent of the male population were regular consumers of the drug. Recreational use of opium elsewhere in the world remained rare into late in the 19th century, as indicated by ambivalent reports of opium usage. [44] In 1906, 41,000 tons were produced, but because 39,000 tons of that year's opium were consumed in China, overall usage in the rest of the world was much lower. [48] These figures from 1906 have been criticized as overestimates. [49] A Chinese opium house; photographed in 1902

Though opium yields vary based on growing conditions, 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of poppies typically produce between 17.6 and 33 lbs. (8 to 15 kilograms) of raw opium, according to the book " Opium: A History" (St. Martin's Griffin, 1999). Estimated yields of heroin from raw opium are between 6 percent and 10 percent. Thus, the acre of poppies found in North Carolina would yield a little more than 13 lbs. (6 kg) of raw opium and 1.3 lbs. (0.6 kg) of heroin in a full growing season in the best of circumstances. Heroin comes from the gum of opium poppies ( Papaver somniferum). These flowers aren't difficult to grow, Wankel said. They thrive in temperate climates and are probably native to the Mediterranean, but they can be grown in subtropical and tropical regions as well. The production methods have not significantly changed since ancient times. Through selective breeding of the Papaver somniferum plant, the content of the phenanthrene alkaloids morphine, codeine, and to a lesser extent thebaine has been greatly increased. In modern times, much of the thebaine, which often serves as the raw material for the synthesis for oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and other semisynthetic opiates, originates from extracting Papaver orientale or Papaver bracteatum. From the earliest finds, opium has appeared to have ritual significance, and anthropologists have speculated ancient priests may have used the drug as a proof of healing power. [11] In Egypt, the use of opium was generally restricted to priests, magicians, and warriors, its invention is credited to Thoth, and it was said to have been given by Isis to Ra as treatment for a headache. [1] A figure of the Minoan "goddess of the narcotics", wearing a crown of three opium poppies, c. 1300 BCE, was recovered from the Sanctuary of Gazi, Crete, together with a simple smoking apparatus. [14] [15] In the industrialized world, the United States is the world's biggest consumer of prescription opioids, with Italy being one of the lowest, because of tighter regulations on prescribing narcotics for pain relief. [146] Most opium imported into the United States is broken down into its alkaloid constituents, and whether legal or illegal, most current drug use occurs with processed derivatives such as heroin rather than with unrefined opium.Senlis Council (September 26, 2005). "The Kabul International Symposium on Drug Policy". Archived from the original on March 13, 2007 . Retrieved May 4, 2007. Most illicit heroin is sold as a white or brownish powder and may be "cut" with other substances such as sugar, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. It can also be cut with strychnine or other poisons. In the 16th century the Portuguese became aware of the lucrative medicinal and recreational trade of opium into China, and from their factories across Asia chose to supply the Canton System, to satisfy both the medicinal and the recreational use of the drug. By 1729 the Yongzheng Emperor had criminalised the new recreational smoking of opium in his empire.

Imports of opium into China stood at 200 chests annually in 1729, [1] when the first anti-opium edict was promulgated. [2] [3] By the time Chinese authorities reissued the prohibition in starker terms in 1799, [4] the figure had leaped; 4,500 chests were imported in the year 1800. [1] The decade of the 1830s witnessed a rapid rise in opium trade, [5] and by 1838, just before the First Opium War, it had climbed to 40,000 chests. [5] The rise continued on after the Treaty of Nanking (1842) that concluded the war. By 1858 annual imports had risen to 70,000 chests (4,480 long tons (4,550t)), approximately equivalent to global production of opium for the decade surrounding the year 2000. [6] W. R. Martin & H. F. Fraser (September 1, 1961). "A comparative study of subjective and physiological effects of heroin and morphine administered intravenously in postaddicts". Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. 133 (3): 388–399. PMID 13767429 . Retrieved June 6, 2007. Inglis, Lucy, Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium, Pan Macmillan, London, 2018. **Review: Julie Peakman: "Not Just Smelling the Flowers", History Today History Today Vol. 68/10, October 2018, pp.102–103. Thelwall, A. S. (1839). The iniquities of the opium trade with China; being a development of the main causes which exclude the merchants of Great Britain from the advantages of an unrestricted commercial intercourse with that vast empire. With extracts from authentic documents. London: Wm. H. Allen and Co. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy (2009). Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy. Harvard University Press. pp.9–. ISBN 978-0-674-05134-8.Robinson SL, Rowbotham DJ, Smith G (July 1991). "Morphine compared with diamorphine. A comparison of dose requirements and side-effects after hip surgery". Anaesthesia. 46 (7): 538–40. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2044.1991.tb09650.x. PMID 1862890. S2CID 35289009. As you reduce the supply of prescription drugs, addicts aren't going to stop using," Cicero told Live Science. "Rather, they're going to switch to something else." Opium was for many centuries the principal painkiller known to medicine and was used in various forms and under various names. Laudanum, for example, was an alcoholic tincture (dilute solution) of opium that was used in European medical practice as an analgesic and sedative. Physicians relied on paregoric, a camphorated solution of opium, to treat diarrhea by relaxing the gastrointestinal tract. The narcotic effects of opium are mainly attributable to morphine, which was first isolated about 1804. In 1898 it was discovered that treating morphine with acetic anhydride yields heroin, which is four to eight times as potent as morphine in both its pain-killing properties and its addictive potential. The other alkaloids naturally present in opium are much weaker; codeine, for example, is only one-sixth as potent as morphine and is used mainly for cough relief. Since the late 1930s, various synthetic drugs have been developed that possess the analgesic properties of morphine and heroin. These drugs, which include meperidine (Demerol), methadone, levorphonal, and many others, are known as synthetic opioids. They have largely replaced morphine and heroin in the treatment of severe pain.

Historical accounts suggest that opium first arrived in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907) as part of the merchandise of Arab traders. [10] Later on, Song Dynasty (960–1279) poet and pharmacologist Su Dongpo recorded the use of opium as a medicinal herb: " Daoists often persuade you to drink the jisu water, but even a child can prepare the yingsu [A] soup." [11] The treaties with the British soon led to similar arrangements with the United States and France. These later became known as the Unequal Treaties, while the Opium Wars, according to Chinese historians, represented the start of China's " Century of humiliation". Ouchterlony, John (1844). The Chinese war: an account of all the operations of the British forces from the commencement to the Treaty of Nanking. London: Saunders and Otley. Ahmad, Diana L. The Opium Debate and Chinese Exclusion Laws in the Nineteenth-century American West (University of Nevada Press, 2007). Drugs and Racism in the Old West.

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Smoking of opium came on the heels of tobacco smoking and may have been encouraged by a brief ban on the smoking of tobacco by the Ming emperor. The prohibition ended in 1644 with the coming of the Qing dynasty, which encouraged smokers to mix in increasing amounts of opium. [1] In 1705, Wang Shizhen wrote, "nowadays, from nobility and gentlemen down to slaves and women, all are addicted to tobacco." Tobacco in that time was frequently mixed with other herbs (this continues with clove cigarettes to the modern day), and opium was one component in the mixture. Tobacco mixed with opium was called madak (or madat) and became popular throughout China and its seafaring trade partners (such as Taiwan, Java, and the Philippines) in the 17th century. [47] In 1712, Engelbert Kaempfer described addiction to madak: "No commodity throughout the Indies is retailed with greater profit by the Batavians than opium, which [its] users cannot do without, nor can they come by it except it be brought by the ships of the Batavians from Bengal and Coromandel." [20] Description of the Culture of the White Poppy and Preparation of Opium, as Practised in the Province of Bahar". The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany. Vol.3. Wm. H. Allen & Company. 1817 . Retrieved May 31, 2022. Smoking of opium declined in the 20th century, partly because it had been supplanted by more-potent derivatives and partly because of determined efforts in China and other developing countries to eradicate it. In the late 1990s, drug-control programs headed by the United Nations and by individual governments contributed to a reduction in opium poppy cultivation in the Golden Triangle. However, the region subsequently became a major producer of other illicit substances, including methamphetamines. Merwin, Samuel (1907). Drugging a nation, the story of China and the opium curse; a personal investigation, during an extended tour, of the present conditions of the opium trade in China and its effects upon the nation. New York, Chicago [etc.]: F. H. Revell company.