Talk:Opium

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The first paragraph of "History of Opium" seems troublesome. The word "delicious"(Which I'm about to change back to delete), and the bit about "prudishly described" seem to be the worst of it. The word "attribute" is bothering me... but seems to be proper usage. The phrase, "an entheogen" seems to be stuck in there for no better reason than to use the word or throw a link in. I think I'm going to clip that too. I don't know about the Metropolitan Museum's gallery or exhibits, but if the name of the deity in the bas relief is known, I think it should be used(with a link either to a page of its own, or a page for its group of gods). And can someone check on the museum's description? I would remove the word "prudishly" got NPOV, but I'd rather it stand out as a red flag for whomever can confirm the description. -- MikeMaller 01:52, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It would be interesting to explain where opium is natural from and where is it cultivated today. Also, what is the English word for a place where opium is sold and smoked? -- Error

An "oporium"? -- goatasaur
An "opium den"? -- Anon
That's traditionally what it's been called. The image shows one in Victorian times. -- ChrisO 08:39, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Unsourced

The following does not cite any sources and is detracts from the quality of the article;

"Countless miracle cures contained opium, which of course was the reason many of these were so successful, since people started taking these cures because they made them feel good. Opium was even touted as an alcoholism cure, evidently to the wives of alcoholics. This would be because an opium addict, capable of supporting his habit on about 5 cents a day, would likely be a more suitable companion for a wife—being placid and calm, mostly—than an alcoholic husband."

Please provide a source. Foolishben 09:19, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conflicting Information

in the harvesting opium section it says that India is the largest producer of opium. In the Production today it says that Afghanistan is the largest producer.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.200.225.102 (talk • contribs) 10:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Effects?

The effects page for opium seem not to exist at all. Perpahs listing the effects could aid in an understanding the drug.

[edit] Etymology of "opium"

The claim that "opium" comes from the ancient Macedonian "opi" (drunken) + "um" (mind) is probably BS. I can't find any support for it anywhere else on the internet, and it contradicts the Oxford English Dictionary, which traces it to the ancient Greek "opion" meaning "vegetable juice." Should it be removed, or just tagged with a "this needs a source"?

Suggestion: start by tagging it and perhaps trying to search out a source of your own. I don't buy it for a second (I see much more substance in your Oxford reference), but I'm not touching the main article; it's too mature. DrMorelos 00:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

in the section on "Harvsting Opium" instead of telling us where Opium is most commomly harvsted it states "iwas here, i was here, i was here". I am doing a research project and trying to find out where it is most commonly harvested, so i cannot fix it. Hopefully someone will be able to do so.

[edit] Production today

I wrote a little bit about the production of opium in Afghanistan but I don't think it is substantial. There is a lot more that can be put into that section and I would add more but I don't have the time to do research on other countries that produce opium and the statistics on opium production today. Rayana fazli 21:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I think these paragraphs should be added to the "production today" section because it does not relate to the section it is in now which is "harvesting opium." I wanted to discuss it with other editors before changed it. Rayana fazli 18:14, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

A recent proposal from the European Senlis Council hopes to solve the problems caused by the massive quantity of opium produced illegally in Afganistan, most of which is converted to heroin, and smuggled for sale in Europe and the USA. This proposal is to licence Afghan farmers to produce opium for the world pharmaceutical market, and thereby solve another problem, that of chronic underuse of potent analgesics where required within developing nations. In the industrialised world the USA is the world's biggest consumer of prescription opiates, with Italy one of the lowest. The Italian medical profesion seems to have recently accepted that opiates have applications apart from pain relief in terminal cancer. Recorded Italian consumption has increased considerably of late.

To this end Senlis arranged a conference in Kabul, to discuss the idea, but it remains to be seen if this will happen; internal security and corruption issues within Afghanistan make it unlikely that they soon will be able to meet the stringent UN requirements for legal production of opiates for export. If the record of CIA interference with attempts to "buy and burn" illicit Burmese opium harvests in the past is considered (McCoy, 1991), Afghanistan's opium may be a major part of current War on Drugs policies for some time.

It is my understanding that India is leading the world in legal production of opium. -Steve colemedic@hotmail.com

If you can show where it might say that India is the leading producer of opium, then put it in the article. Rayana fazli 07:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The 2005 Senlis proposal, which advocated licensing Afghan farmers to produce raw opium for commercial morphine production -- thus meeting a regional medical demand and potentially eliminating a major source of criminal/terrorist income -- was rejected outright by all involved political actors in the country. Its ideals were farsighted and well-placed, but it was also purposefully confrontational and radical, given, for one, that the entire official effort has been toward eradication and the promotion of "alternative livelihoods." While the eradication scheme has been a complex failure, the implications of a complete policy turnabout on the part of the Afghan government and the major supporters of the cause (US, UK, UN, etc.) were unsustainable; the rationale, in each case, might have been distinct, but each contributed to total rejection. The underlying link among them is a supposed morality that supersedes hard-sell (global) practical considerations. The only reasonable argument against the licensing scheme proposed by Senlis is that the country does not have the legal or logistical framework to handle the process, and already obvious "government" corruption does not give much faith in the feasibility of such an operation. In any case, although it's well obvious that opium is financing chaos in Afghanistan, there doesn't seem to be any effective means to a solution, because the problem lies within a global economy and global politics that refuse to recognise each other.

[edit] Testimony

The following by User:64.229.133.117 is too personal for Wikipedia.

Added December 21, 2003:
I have smoked opium for the past few days and can say that the effects are mild and uninteresting (sort of like marijuana) but highly addictive, and you crave it the next day. I'm glad I ran out and I won't be getting more!

Yes, that's a...violation of the NPOV...and it's kind of creepy that someone would smoke an addictive substance just to gain insight into an online encyclopedia article. It’s probably just sarcastic vandalizing, anyway.

More that it is a violation of the No Original Research policy. But also the NPOV policy as well. In any case, if they did really smoke opium I doubt they did it just to gain insight into an online encyclopedia article Cloaked Dagger 04:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
sometimes called GOM, an acronym for "God's own medicine" This is cute, but does it have to be in the very first sentence? Wetman 23:02, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

It says Opium tea rarely leads to addiction. That is probablu because people making tea have limited supply of pods. It is as addictive as all other forms of Opium, and the article should be corrected.

My honors thesis (useless extra research paper [personal opinion]) was an argument for allowing a deregulated private use of poppy pod decoction (tea) with subsequent discussion and then counterargument with discussion. Many researchers manage to find no addictive potential (someone please remind me to cite my favourite reference when I can find it); as a graduate student I found quite the opposite -- that it was VERY habit-forming.
The other edge of the sword, though, is that since many different alkaloids coexist in the pod itself, the combined effects are vastly different than those of any individual opiate or opioid. If you administer a decoction of poppy pod to a patient and test levels of morphine, codeine, thebaine, papaverine, you will see a synergy which is both patient-specific and wildly interesting. The timing of metabolism of each allows for a sort of multi-stage action, much like ambien CR or oxycontin can claim, but without gimmicks. And the most amazing part about it is that (WARNING: POTENTIALLY ANECDOTAL) in at least one patient a two-year regimen of poppy tea at a stable daily dose (dose was never increased), the psychological effects of euphoria waned but the enhanced calmness and patience did not. Furthermore, there was NO negative effect on the immune system as threatened in both the opium and opioid articles; in fact, the patient(s) never once became ill during the experiment. This was the surprising finding for me which allowed me to add a beginning to the ending of my thesis (the argument against was done about six months before the argument for was begun). I wish I were still researching sometimes, so that I could perform a much larger-scale study. I wholeheartedly believe that there is an enormous gift in many plants in nature and we humans use that gift inappropriately.
I would like to apologize for including my original research here, but I hope you would agree that a 'discussion' page is a much better place for contemplation of original research than a main article. DrMorelos 00:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
My own experience with buprenorphine (used concomittantly with tranylcypromine, both prescribed as part of a treatment regime for severe refractory depression) was that from 0.2mg to 16mg per day, it did not give any euphoria (by my definition) at all, although there was a sensation that might be interpreted as that for the first 8 hours after an increase in dosage. At no point was there any problem lowering the dosage or ceasing use altogether.
It did, however, have a persistent positive effect on calmness, patience, empathy and stress tolerance, apart from the depressive symptoms themselves (those responded very well). Also, it reversed long-term damage (tremors, hyperprolactinemia, etc.) from nozinan.
With regards to your comment about immune function, I too was surprised to read that opiates are considered bad for immune function, as I have had only a single infectious disease since starting treatment (and I stopped about a year ago), despite having been very susceptible to infectious disease in the past. Most parameters of physical health have had an improvement that outlasted the use of the drug itself.
Again, this is anecdotal, but if you'd like more information, mail me from my user page. I would like to see some more work done on this kind of thing. Perhaps the old assumptions are wrong, or perhaps there is simply a particular subpopulation for which opiates work very differently. Zuiram 01:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
In regards to the origional topic (although I did find both your experiances interesting), anything regarding HOW addictive opiates/opiods needs to be avoided. Addiction is subjective and involves many variables. The only thing that can be presented in a truelly scientific manner is physical dependance. The only mention of addiction and/or psychological dependance should be that they are possible. As a side note I am for the legalization of all drugs because anything less is a restriction of our freedom. But I am also scientist (in mind and soon to be on paper) and as much as I would like to rant about the insanity of drug prohabition this is not the place. So please avoid arguements on either side, leave that for the article on drug prohabition. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Foolishben (talk • contribs) 09:17, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

From laurelbush1952@hotmail.com (Laurel Bush, 16 Kennedy Terrace, UK, KW14 5BN) 2005 January 21st

Im finding no reason for the 1729 Chinese prohibition of opium. Was the official reason then that given in the 1810 decree? And is there evidence from 1729 of what we might now recognise as a distinction between medical and recreational use? Was there licensing of select professions (eg 'doctors') to supply opium?

You could infer reason given your lack of direct evidence, or you could look in new places for evidence. Also, please do not forget that the regime in China at the time was imperialist and was still experimenting with high-volume, state-level foreign trade. Read opium wars but please only consider it as a possible authority; there is a great deal of opinion tied up in the wording of citations chosen (typical of 18th- to 21st-century macro-political rhetoric, which has historically been of indeterminate value to any reader). While reading, keep in mind that any addictive substance is an easy thing to sell and if it's being imported for consumption without benefit to productivity, that means money is being exported at net loss. DrMorelos 00:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Was China the first country to legislate against opium use? Is China the birth place of modern drug control legislation?

I find myself wishing desperately that I could confidently answer either of those excellent questions. DrMorelos 00:19, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opium in the middle ages

I'm interested in how a person may ingest opium in the middle ages, particualry a quick form. This is research for a novel.

Robert Carnegie, Scotland; rja.carnegie@excite.com ; 15th November 2005

http://opioids.com/timeline/ represents a history of opium deviating somewhat from the article here, particularly in American legislation - they say taxed in 1840, smoking in public banned in San Francisco 1874, taxed again in 1890, "1905 U.S. Congress bans opium" - during a sitting anyway :-)

I also think more could be said about opium in China; I've fiddled with it but I'm not qualified to rewrite it. But it's plainly absurd to talk about "Chinatowns" and then about China, when the dates given are the opposite way around.

As for earlier historic use, apparently on Cyprus they were smoking as well as eating it as early as 1100 BC; Hippocrates had something to say about it; morphine is produced "by dissolving it in acid then neutralizing it with ammonia" in 1803 - Germans are such clever chemists! If a middle-ages quick hit is still wanted, perhaps you could stretch a point and bring in an anachronistic alchemist, or just drive a person out of their wits another way. Nutmeg in quantity is a hallucinogen and toxin, I don't know how fast-acting, and it's just the time for ergotism ("dancing mania").

[edit] Ongoing Vandalism

While I understand why this might be a target for vandalism (though it would seem that Heroin would be a more likely target), who is the bright light who keeps insisting that opium isn't addictive, and what are they smoking? Haikupoet 02:37, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi;
The way I had been reverting vandalism is:
click on "Revision as of 16:25, 31 May 2005"
edit page
save
Somehow I botched this on the opium article and reverted to a already-vandalised page. Thanks for noticing and correcting my mistake. You can also play around with the "history" tab, comparing earlier page versions. Your version of 19:43, 31 May 2005 looks fine to me. My own, and the vandals, recent revisions on 31 May 2005 should be disregarded. The last good version prior to yours looks like that of 20:31, 30 May 2005 by Rx StrangeLove. It includes some additional discussion of the addiction syndrome that we may want to include.
--Tom harrison 11:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
In fact, smoking or eating opium isn't especially addictive for most people (but then neither is it all that pleasant an experience, speaking from my own - even opium tea makes me pretty ill). Certainly less so than, say, wikipedia editing (and many other Internet-centred behaviours). Keep in mind that the history and legal status of contraband drugs in general and opium in particular is full of wild exaggeration, racist and political motivation, and very little good information. Heroin is more habit-forming than opium or morphine, but still not all it's cracked up to be (crack, on the other hand, is something I understand to be pretty nasty, as are stimulants in general). The reasons people compulsively abuse substances (among other behaviours) tend to have more to do with where the people are at than the nature of the substance. - toh 23:30, 2005 August 11 (UTC)
Indeed it probably isn't as addictive as "they" would want us to believe, but it does suit the requirements to be considered addictive. Anything can be psychologically addicted, and certainly some people are addicted that way, and opiates do produce a tolerance so there is the physical addiction aspect as well, it might be exagerated by the authorities, but it's still there for sure. And the article should mention this addiction potential. On another note, Heroin is metabolized into morphine in the body, and thus has the same effects(and addiction/tolerance/etc) of morphine as well as a few of it's own. Cloaked Dagger 04:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Currency Conversion

I added the euro to usd conversion. This the english Wikipedia and it needs to be expressed in terms of monetary value that are used here. The euro is not used here. Will add currency link.Dakota 20:24, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

You stupid fuck. This is the english *language* wikipedia. Here in Ireland we use the euro AND speak english.

[edit] What is cocaine and opium

what are the affects of cocaine and opium when smoked? a friend of mine has started doing this.

Smoking both together? Mixing stimulants (i.e. cocaine) and depressants (i.e opium) together is known as a speedball, and is bad news, and has caused a good number of (famous) drug related deaths. It carries a large overdose risk as the effects of one drug will generally wear off before the other, causing a delayed-reaction overdose effect. The combination can also be very hard on the heart, and can lead to heart attack. Risks of death aside, according to the "experts" (hard core drug users), the speedball is also the most addictive drug combination, and if you've never tried it, it should be avoided at all costs. --Thoric 15:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Well whatever it is he's calm on it like when he use to smoke meth, he said it was cocaine and opium and he called it a lemonhead maybe he's not telling me what it really is??


Most opium and meth/cocaine containing concoctions are common abused today, although seldom when smoked (I am a paramedic and I haven’t heard of both being smoked together, although it is possible). It is interesting to me that early (early 1900's) in the history of opioid addiction, cocaine was thought to be the solution. Ironically, many of the claims to fame for opioid concoctions in the 1800's resurfaced in the praise for cocaine. And today they both are major drugs of abuse. -Steve colemedic@hotmail.com

[edit] Strong pain precludes dependence??

I removed the sentence "Strong pain is so stimulating itself that dependence when treating strong pain is rare" and then I adjusted the previous sentence for clarity.

I removed the sentence because it didn't make sense to me -- once the opium removes the pain, it would remove that stimulation, and therefore it would remove the very thing that is claimed to preclude dependency -- wouldn't it clear its own path to dependency?

Please leave the sentence out, or put it back and provide a citation, per Wikipedia policy.

I'm also wondering about the word "euphoric" in the previous sentence. Should it be "anti-dysphoric"? In other words, is dependency just as likely, or is it less likely, when a person uses opium to move from anxiety or depression to neutrality, than when a person uses it to move from neutrality to euphoria?

I agree with the removal of "strong pain [...] rare". It smells like original research. Has research confirmed that increased endorphin release protects against addiction?
As for euphoric, its use is correct. "Euphoric" can be used both in active and passive form. Something that improves moods (eu- = "good") is called a euphoric, despite the fact that euphory itself is more than just a "normal" or "good" mood. I agree it's not very clear. JFW | T@lk 23:05, 3 December 2005 (UTC)



Opium for therapy

For many centuries o. was a reliable remedy. About 70% of depressive people could removal their depression. Nowadays in India opium is still a kind of therapy by depression. The danger of dependance for such human beeing is small. --Fackel 18:01, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak to opium itself, but opiates are still used clinically in treating depression. Just very rarely. The preferred agent is buprenorphine, as it has less addictive potential and a fairly long half-life; also, it is a partial agonist (limiting the potential for overdose, and preventing the user from abusing street opiates at the same time), and it is a full antagonist at the kappa receptor, leading to decreased tolerance and increased antidepressant effects. In fact, kappa antagonists are being researched as antidepressants in their own right, and buprenorphine has a pretty amazing affinity for that receptor.
That said, the politics of it are silly if you're going to talk NPOV. Yes, abuse is a problem. But, studies clearly indicate that abuse is usually a consequence of mental illness (most commonly depression), and that the problems are derived from (a) the illicit supply chain, and (b) misuse. Neither of these are relevant in a therapeutic setting.
In Russia, they've started using torture (specifically, whipping) as a way to legally achieve the effect of opiates on depressive patients. Screw informed consent; if I could choose between being whipped and being depressed, I'd take the whip any day.
Dependance is a complicated issue. A person with heart disease is dependant on their medication to avoid dying, which is conceptually equivalent to physical dependance (particularly as there may be rebound issues if you quit those the way you'd force someone to quit opiates). A person with chronic depression is (at least periodically) dependant on medication to avoid relapse, which is conceptually equivalent to psychological dependance.
There is a qualitative difference, of course, but denying mental or physical health care based on the liability of the drug to cause dependance is still denying health care, and figures prominently in causing addiction and supporting illicit drug operations world-wide. Zuiram 02:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Afganistan in BOLD: Very annoying. Am editing out to one link, and every other time mentioned into plain text. V. Joe 22:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Five cents

The article repeats twice that an opium addict could satisfy his need for five cents a day in the 19th century. This may be true, but I think it is a bit misleading to mention it, since the value of money was different those days. Maybe one should include the typical price of a bottle of whiskey of a typical pay of day's manual labour those days for comparison. Since five cents feels like a small amount of money for a modern reader, it causes a "wow that was cheap"-impression, and I am not quite sure if it is accurate. Does anyone have any data of other prices of the 19th century. This was just my five cents...Punainen Nörtti 08:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. My position is that the alcohol it replaced would cost about the same, and no mention is made of the near-completely erased libido in most male opium users. What wife wants an asexual husband? Isn't that why pfizer is suddenly so solvent? I would prefer if someone else could correct this in the article, however, because I am very poor at distinguishing between propriety and its inverse when I have strong concerns regarding an issue. DrMorelos 00:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the reason why wives of alcoholics would buy this is they'd prefer an asexual and reserved husband rather than a violent drunkard. Frotz661 04:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] opium

what are the recent problems about opuim

[edit] SKY AND EARTH

203.87.187.190 05:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)what's the best for me

[edit] Medicinal uses and cultivation: Morhpine, Codine,

Surely the Medicinal Uses section should mention Opium's use as raw material for morphine, codine and other modern pharmaceutical applications. Mind you, I may be misunderstanding the production of these licit drugs.

Also, it should probably be mentioned that licit opium poppies are cultivated legally in several countries. Australia and India I think are the leading producers of opium for pharmaceuticals. [1] Edward Tubb 15:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American Fortunes

One of the sentences in the "modern usage" section looks like it needs to be changed. the sentence reads:

"Many large American fortunes were built in the opium trade, including those of John Jacob Astor (partially and briefly), John Kerry (from his Forbes grandfather), and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (from his Delano grandfather)."

For now, I added the citation needed tag to the sentence. However, I would like to remove or change the sentence completely since John Kerry and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not have anything to do with the sale of opium themselves. If anything, it should list the names of the men who actually sold the opium two generations earlier (if they really did, that is). The fact that Kerry and Roosevelt are descendants of these men has no relevance to the article IMO. Thoughts? -km 68.85.97.73 03:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"Fortunately for these addicts, they did not lose their jobs or much of their respectability as a result of this, and an opium addiction was considered more similar to a gambling or alcohol addiction. Also, since a man could remain an opium addict on 5 cents a day, it did not cause undue financial strain, and therefore no damage to the person was caused that one living under an 'addict' lifestyle in the modern sense would risk suffering."

Seems more like an opinion to me rather than facts. --83.23.4.131 22:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

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