Opium is the dried latex derived from the opium poppy. When processed, it is made into heroin and other synthetic opioids. It was originally obtained by scratching the seed pods of the poppy until the latex leaked out. When it dried, it was scraped off and dehydrated. Raw opium is sometimes sold on the black market, but today it is largely turned into a morphine base and then into heroin. Heroin is the preferred form of opium because it is considerably more potent.
The first use of opium – that we’re aware of – was by the Sumerians in 3400 BC. They referred to it as the “joy plant” and passed along word of its euphoria-inducing properties to the civilizations that followed. Interestingly, it was used up until the 1300s, where it disappears from record for two centuries. This is most likely due to the Inquisition, when all things from the East were linked to the Devil. It became popular again for both medical and recreational use in the 1500s. In 1803, morphine was synthesized for the first time. Later in the 1800s, British demand for opium hit an all-time high, to the point where in 1878 Britain passed the Opium Act to curb consumption. The selling of opium then became restricted to registered Chinese opium smokers.
If you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan, your first inkling of the existence of opium might be around this point in time – the Victorian Era. Authors from that period frequently wrote of people using drugs in an opium den, partly because the idea of the scary Chinese drug-addicted immigrant was so prevalent. In the short story “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” Holmes goes undercover as an opium addict. When his partner Dr. Watson tracks him to an opium den, he describes the place as a kind of journey through hell. Other authors of the Victorian era painted similar pictures of slums filled with morally bankrupt peasants.
Of course, in those days opiates were the active ingredient in many over-the-counter medicines and heroin was marketed as a side-effect-free cough suppressant. Addiction was misunderstood when it wasn’t ignored. The 1888 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica stated that addiction to narcotics “happens chiefly in individuals of weak will-power, who would just as easily become the victims of intoxicating drinks, and who are practically moral imbeciles, often addicted also to other forms of depravity.”
Opium was actually common among the upper classes, although it was generally consumed in the form of laudanum. Laudanum was a tincture, meaning it’s made by dissolving a drug in alcohol, and it contained about 10 percent powdered opium by weight. It was popular as a painkiller and was even fed to teething infants.
In the early 1900s, the United States banned the use of opium. Today, heroin of course remains illegal, but opium is allowed to be imported into the country, after which it is typically broken down into its components and made into opiate drugs.
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