Opium poppy

“ All opium has a peculiar narcotic odour and a sharp bitter taste.
Chemical Composition—Poppy-juice like analogous vegetable fluids is a mixture of several substances in variable proportion. With the commoner substances which constitute the great bulk of the drug we are not yet sufficiently acquainted. [Pg 56]
In the first place (independently of water) there is found mucilage distinct from that of gum arabic, also pectic matter, [249] and albumin. These bodies, together with unavoidable fragments of the poppy capsules, probably amount on an average to more than half the weight of the opium. ”

“ At the first, both local and government officials did their best to stop it and to stamp out the culture of the poppy; but although laws were passed making death the penalty for its cultivation they became a dead letter, until to-day it is estimated that eighty per cent, of the men and fifty per cent, of the women, in one or two populous provinces, are opium smokers. They do not all smoke to excess. There are moderate smokers as we have our moderate drinkers; but all through the province of Sze Chuan the opium shops are as thick as the gin shops in the lower parts of London. ”

“ A plant which is at once a blessing and a curse, and which is extensively cultivated in India, is the poppy. When the [Pg 144] outer skin of the fruit capsule is slit with a knife, a milky juice oozes out which turns brown and coagulates in the air, and is called opium. The opium which Europe requires for medicinal purposes comes from Macedonia and Asia Minor. But the opium grown in Persia and India goes mostly to China, into which country it was introduced by the Tatars at the end of the seventeenth century. The Chinese smoke opium in specially-made pipes. ”

“ Wu Li Chang did not know much about opium in those days, but he knew considerably more than Mrs. Cholmondeley-Piggot did, and he knew that these were not opium poppies, for all the lady or the guide-books said—she had presented him with a guide-book, of course. There was not much poppy culture in his part of Sze-chuan, but he knew that much. Decent brands of opium were made from the white poppy. Some inferior sorts, such as coolies chew, are made from the red-flowered plants, but not such as these. ”

“ Why is the juice of the poppy called opium?
Because of its derivation from the Persian afioun, and the Arabian aphium. The botanical name of the poppy, papaver, is said to be derived from its being commonly mixed with the pap, papa, given to children in order to ease pain, and procure sleep.
Why does opium produce sleep?
Because it contains an alkaline substance called Morphia. The same drug contains a peculiar acid called the Meconic; and a vegetable alkali named Narcotine, to which unpleasant stimulating properties are attributed by Majendie.
Why is sugar so generally found in plants? ”

“ Semisynthetic narcotics include heroin (horse, smack) , and hydromorphone (Dilaudid) . Synthetic narcotics include meperidine or Pethidine (Demerol, Mepergan) , methadone (Dolophine, Methadose) , and others (Darvon, Lomotil) . Opium is the brown, gummy exudate of the incised, unripe seedpod of the opium poppy. Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) is the source for the natural and semisynthetic narcotics. Poppy straw is the entire cut and dried opium poppy-plant material, other than the seeds. Opium is extracted from poppy straw in commercial operations that produce the drug for medical use. ”

“ A.D. 77) , and Pliny gives a pretty full account of the drug as opion (see Hanbury and Flückiger, 40) . The Opium-poppy was introduced into China, from Arabia, at the beginning of the 9th century, and its earliest Chinese name is A-fu-yung, a representation of the Arabic name. The Arab. afyūn is sometimes corruptly called afīn, of which afīn, 'imbecile,' is a popular etymology. Similarly the Bengalees derive it from afi-heno, 'serpent-home.' [A number of early references to opium smoking have been collected by Burnell, Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 113.] ”

“ From the dried capsules of the white poppy he extracts opium, and he grows acres of poppies that with thousands of chests of that opium he may degrade into decrepitude and wretchedness the most populous nations upon earth. Nature gives him the purple grape and the golden grain, and he mashes them and lets them rot and seethe, and assists, and superintends, and retards their decomposition, till he has educed from them a fermented intoxicating liquor; and not content with this luxury, he pours it into Circean cups of degrading excess ”

“ In a report of H.E. Tuan Fang it is stated that during the three years which have elapsed since the anti-opium campaign was started 60 per cent. of the smokers have given up the habit. The mowage of the poppy-planted ground and the number of opium shops have been decreased more than 50 per cent.
From the province of Yünnan, where we saw much poppy cultivation, news comes that the traveller sees practically none; from Szechwan and Shansi similar reports state that other crops have entirely replaced the poppy except in isolated districts. ”

“ Lack of transportation facilities is doubtless the chief reason why the opium poppy has in the past been widely cultivated in this part of China, although the practise has lately been prohibited by the government. The advantage in poppy culture was that it could be carried on in small scattered fields and the product was so valuable for unit of weight that it would pay for long-distance transportation across the mountains. The inhabitants of the region themselves were not, however, generally addicted to the use of the drug. ”

“ In the country the proportion is stated to be from 5 to 10 per cent....”
Production—The poppy in whatever region it may grow always contains a milky juice possessing the same properties; and the collection of opium is possible in all temperate and subtropical countries where the rainfall is not excessive. But the production of the drug is limited by other conditions than soil and climate, among which the value of land and labour stands pre-eminent.
At the present day opium is produced on an important scale in Asia Minor, Persia, India, and China; to a small extent in Egypt. ”

“ The records of the 10th century prove this; and opium figures as an item in the tariff of 1589, and again in a customs list of the 17th century. Hundreds of square miles are devoted to the cultivation of the poppy, which, according to the late Dr. Williams, "is now grown in every province, without any real restraint being anywhere put on it." Native opium sells for half the price of the foreign article, and its smokers are consequently more numerous among the people and younger practitioners (i.e., those from 25 to 35 years of age) . ”

“ De Quincey apparently possessed the type of constitution which is cerebrally stimulated by opium. To such a being the golden gates are closed; and the Easterners, whom he despised for what he termed their beastly lethargies, have taught me the real secret of the poppy. I do not employ opium as an aid to my social activities; I regard it as nepenthe from them and as a key to a brighter realm. It has been my custom, M. Gianapolis, for many years, periodically to visit that fairyland. ”

“ It would not do to attempt to prohibit liquor by stopping the cultivation of grains and fruits. The poppy, on the other hand, produces nothing but opium and its alkaloids. In stopping the growth of the poppy you are depriving man of no useful or necessary article. The poppy must be grown in the open, along the river-bottoms (where the roads run) . It cannot be hidden. As government regulating goes, nothing is easier than to find a field of [Pg 90] poppies and measure it. The plans of the Shansi farmers for the coming year should throw some light on the sincerity of the opium reforms. ”

“ It can become an exacting and dominating master, and the habit once formed is well nigh ineradicable.
For the information of those who have not seen the pure drug, I may mention that opium is a dark brown, putty-like substance with an agreeable, sweetish, odour. It is the dried resin obtained by incising the unripe [36] capsules of a certain variety of poppy, and is prepared in large, well-equipped factories, from which it is issued in cakes and balls weighing eighty tolas. [2]
The opium industry is a Government monopoly. ”

“ This fact together with the facts that opium poppies are hard to conceal because of their color and that the harvesting of opium is only economically feasible in countries with an abundant supply of cheap labor justifies a conclusion that little if any opium poppy production is going on in this country. See Brief for the United States, 21-23.↑ 21 U.S.C. § 173.↑ Ibid. See supra, n. 12.↑ In 1966, the United States imported 173,951 kilograms of crude opium; in the same year, 715 Kilograms of morphine and 30,662 kilgrams of codeine were produced from imported opium. ”

“ The poppy is now grown in every province of the Chinese Empire, but the cultivation is far more extensive in the western than the eastern provinces. The two provinces of Yünnan and Szechuen produce by [Pg 32] far the largest portion of the drug. Two-thirds of the available land of those two provinces may be said to be under poppy cultivation. The amount of native opium thus produced may be taken to be at least four times as much as the whole amount imported, and the native growth is even encouraged by the duty levied upon it being 50 per cent. ”

“ It is largely used by suicides; and children, being very susceptible to its influence, frequently die from misadventure after administration of an overdose of the drug. The ordinary preparations of opium are the drug itself, which is the inspissated juice of the oriental poppy, and the tincture, commonly known as laudanum. Opium contains a variety of more or less active principles, the chief of which is the alkaloid morphia, which is present in good opium to the extent of about 10% in combination with meconic acid, which is physiologically inactive. ”

“ Opium.—Good opium in a concrete state should be of a blackish brown colour, of a strong fetid smell, a hard viscous texture, and heavy; and when rubbed between the finger and thumb, it is perfectly free from roughness or grittiness. This drug is liable to great adulteration, being frequently vitiated with cow-dung, or a powder composed of the dry leaves and stalks of the poppy, the gum of the mimosa, meal and other substances. The flavour alone indicates the goodness of opium in a liquid state. ”

“ Poppy-juice contains neither starch nor tannic acid, the absence of which easily detected substances affords one criterion for judging of the purity of the drug.
The proportion of water in opium is very variable. In drying Turkey opium previous to pulverization and for other pharmaceutical purposes, the average loss is about 121⁄2 per cent. [252] Bengal opium, which resembles a soft black extract, is manufactured so as to contain 30 per cent. ”

“ The duty on local consumption, which is included under excise, yielded £981,000 in 1907–1908. The opium revenue proper is derived from two sources: (1) a monopoly of production in the valley Opium. of the Ganges, and (2) a transit duty levied on opium grown in the native states of western India, known as Malwa opium. Throughout British territory the growth of the poppy is almost universally prohibited, except in a certain tract of Bengal and the United Provinces, where it is grown with the help of advances from government and under strict supervision. ”

“ The Peking correspondent of The Times, in a journey to Turkestan in the early part of 1910, found that in Shen-si province the people’s desire to suppress the opium trade was in advance of the views of the government. Every day trains of opium carts were passed travelling under official protection. But in the adjoining province of Shan-si there had been complete suppression of poppy cultivation and in Kan-suh the officials were conducting a very vigorous campaign against the growth of the poppy. ”

“ The process is a rather complicated one and during it the natives always recline. No visible effect is produced even after smoking several pipefuls, but the deathly paleness and expressionless eye marks the inveterate opium user.
There can be no doubt that the Chinese government has been, and is, genuinely anxious to suppress the use of opium and it has succeeded to a remarkable degree. We heard of only one instance of poppy growing in Yün-nan and often met officials, accompanied by a guard of soldiers, on inspection trips. Indeed, while we were in Meng-ting the district mandarin arrived. ”

“ The following morning those engaged in collecting the opium lay a large poppy leaf on the palm of the left hand, and having a knife in the right hand, they scrape the opium which has exuded from the incision in each capsule, and then transfer it from the knife to the leaf, until a mass of sufficient size has been formed, when a second poppy leaf is placed over the top of the mass. If the dew has been heavy during the night the yield is greater, but the opium is dark in colour; if, on the contrary, there has been no dew, the yield is less, but the opium is of a lighter colour. ”

“ Modern collectors and dealers adulterate opium with sand, pebbles, clay, lead, flour, starch, licorice, chicory, gum arabic and other gums, figs, pounded poppy capsules, an excessive quantity of poppy leaves and other leaves, etc. After collecting and drying the peasants carry the gum opium to the market-places, where they are met by the buyers and merchants, who inspect the wares and fix a price very advantageous to themselves.
The present trade in opium is something enormous, especially in India, China, and Asia Minor. ”