The Opium Story

The Opium Story

Part One: The History of Opium

by Bruce Thomson, Thomson Therapy Center PC

Humans have been harvesting the opium poppy for at least 7000 years! The opium poppy is native to the Southern and Western Mediterranean in Europe, where it was first domesticated. Opium appears to have spread from West to East, then back to the West again. Evidence of harvest and use has been found in Late Stone Age settlements in Swiss Lake Villages near the headwaters of the Rhine, the Rhone, the Po and the Danube rivers, at Lake Bracciano in Italy and in Germany, dating to 5700 BC. In Bronze Age Spain (4200 BC) opium poppy capsules were placed with burial items in woven grass bags in the Cueva de los Murcialagos (‘Bat Cave’) near Granada. By 3400 BC the Sumerians in Mesopotamia were referring to opium as Gil, ‘happiness’, and the opium poppy as Hul Gil, the ‘plant of joy’. Perhaps in a bit of subtle revenge, they passed their knowledge, and the addictive plant, on to the Assyrians and the Babylonians who conquered them.

Egyptians of the Bronze Age grew opium poppies (Opium Thebacium) in famous fields near Thebes by 1500 BC, and traded it with the Phoenicians, Minoans, Greeks and Carthaginians. The trade spread to Crete (1300 BC) and Cyprus (1100 BC), where the “Peoples of the Sea” created high quality knives used specifically for the harvest of opium. The ancient Greeks knew opium, and in fact the name is derived from the Greek opos, ‘juice’, and opion, ‘poppy juice’. Homer refers to it in both the Iliad and the Odyssey around 850 BC. Greek and Egyptian physicians of the Bronze Age used opium to ease pain and the authorities mixed it with hemlock to insure quick, painless death for criminals. Hippocrates, “the father of medicine” stated its usefulness as a narcotic (from the Greek for “benumbing or deadening”) in 460 BC. The Latin name, Papaver somniferum, actually means sleep-bringing poppy. Many physicians used opium for pain relief, yet they were very concerned about causing accidental death due to uncertain dosages. And from the very start people were becoming addicted to the drug.

Around 330 BC Alexander the Great probably introduced opium to Persia and India during his campaigns of conquest. Opium was used in Arabic medicine from the first century onward, then used recreationally in Islamic societies. The Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, was reputed to have died from an overdose of opium, which he took regularly to control the pain of his wounds and stiff joints. He was considered the last of the “Five Good Emperors” of Rome and his death led to the dissolution of the Pax Romana. If Opium addiction played a part, then it could be said to have hastened the fall of Rome! Even 2000 years ago opiates were taking a heavy toll on society.

Opium use spread to China with Arab traders by 400 AD, and use was heavy in Turkey, Iran, India and China. Ironically, use in Europe was largely forgotten due to unavailability and the Church’s condemnation of anything from Arabia. Somewhere between the tenth and thirteenth century opium made its way back from Asia Minor to Europe. In the early 1500’s Portuguese sailors trading in the East China Sea began the practice of smoking Opium. The results were an immediate and dramatic increase in reaction to the drug. The Chinese at first rejected the practice and outlawed it, only to later run into considerable domestic use and conflict with European nations profiting from the trade.

In 1527, a Swiss-German alchemist named Paracelsus described the mix of opium, ethanol and other ingredients, as a painkiller in European medical literature. He named it Laudanum after the Latin verb laudare, to praise. Laudanum came in many strengths and mixtures over the years. It is typically 10% powdered opium, 18-45% ethyl alcohol, and a variety of non-active additions including saffron, cinnamon, cloves, honey, musk, amber and even crushed pearls.

Even as the Portuguese were sending opium into China in the 1600’s, English ships chartered by Elizabeth I were bringing Indian opium to Britain at her command. Laudanum use became widespread for treating a variety of conditions – coughing, diarrhea and especially pain. One famous preparation by Thomas Sydenham included opium, sherry and herbs. In addition to treating medical concerns like cholera, dysentery, consumption and rheumatism, laudanum was in demand for military use. By 1841 the U.S. Army was using 2.8 million ounces of opium tincture (Laudanum) and 500,000 opium pills each year. And one portion of the population in particular demanded laudanum – women. Estimates are that three fourths of those who became addicted to laudanum were women taking the medication to treat menstrual cramps.

During the 1700’s the Dutch and then the British, began importing vast amounts of opium from India into China. The Dutch reintroduced the Chinese to smoking opium and it took hold. As the British gained control of India, they also controlled its opium production and began sending as much as 2000 chests of opium per year to China. The Chinese emperors responded by making illegal the smoking of opium in 1729, then opium itself in 1799. The British refused to stop the vastly profitable trade and in 1839 began the First Opium War with China. The Chinese lost the war, gave in to the opium trade, and even ceded Hong Kong to the British. Many wealthy Americans, including Charles Cabot, John Cushing and Jacob Astor began to trade in opium to China as well, finding the profits irresistible. In the 1850’s the British arrived in Burma and began massive imports of opium there as well. The Second Opium War, pitting Britain and France against China in 1856, solidified the legal sale of opium in China.

The British also firmed up their position on the supply side. In addition to India, they monopolized the purchase of Turkish opium, sending it exclusively to England and the U.S. Western use continued to soar at this time. By 1830, England was importing 22,000 pounds of opium per year, and by 1840 the U.S. was importing 24,000 pounds. However the writing was on the wall. Addiction rates in Western nations were soaring with estimates ranging from 250,000 to 1,000,000 addicts in the U.S. by 1900. The government would soon be forced to take action.

In 1875 San Francisco banned opium dens. In 1890 the U.S. Congress imposed a tax on opium and morphine. In 1891 California required warning labels on narcotics (any psychoactive compound that produces the morphine-like effect of relieving pain and inducing deep sleep. Psychoactive drugs, also known as psychotropic drugs, are chemical substances that cross the blood-brain barrier and act upon the central nervous system to change perception, mood, consciousness, cognition and behavior). By 1907 opiates required a prescription and by 1909 opium itself was illegal in the U.S. In 1914, 34 nations signed the Harrison Narcotics Act and agreed to control narcotics. By 1924, 62 nations had joined the Opium Commission.

While moving to fight the importation and use of Opium at home, the British continued to supply India and China with the drug. It was not until 1910 that the British agreed to dismantle the India-China opium trade, after 150 years of efforts by the Chinese leaders to reject it.

Opium actually began to fade as a drug of choice in the early 1800s. In 1805, Freidrich Serturner, an uneducated, 21-year-old German pharmacist’s assistant, isolated an organic alkaloid compound from opium. He found it to be 5-10 times as powerful as opium! He eventually named the substance morphine, after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. His work was slow to gain recognition, but by 1818 he was internationally renowned, and in 1827 Merck & Company of Darmstadt, Germany began the commercial manufacturing of morphine. They were the first to build a huge pharmaceutical company around opioids, but as you will soon see, they were far from the last.

Morphine quickly became a medical mainstay, used to treat a wide variety of illnesses. It had the usual opioid treatment characteristics: it was an analgesic (pain reliever); an antitussive (cough suppressant); an anti-diarrheal and helped with shortness of breath. When Dr. Alexander Wood developed the hypodermic syringe using a hollow needle to pierce the skin, morphine became injectable. The effects were instantaneous and three times as powerful as oral morphine. Sadly the trail of misery that so often follows relief with opioids was not slow to make an appearance. A woman named Mrs. Wood soon became the first recorded fatality from an injection overdose when she died from self-administered morphine! Accounts disagree on whether she was Dr. Wood’s wife or another relative, but agree on the fact of her death.

Once morphine had been isolated as the first alkaloid, (naturally occurring chemical compounds containing mostly nitrogen atoms, which are purified from raw extracts often through the use of acid), it was only a matter of time before others were found. In 1832, a French chemist named Pierre Robiquet was able to isolate codeine, the second alkaloid of opium, and the Merck chemical works immediately began to manufacture and market it alongside morphine. Along with the third alkaloid, thebaine, these 3 “natural opiates” would be accompanied by a host of further synthesized and lab-created “opioids”, including such familiar names as hydrocodone (in Vicodin), oxycodone (in Oxycontin), methadone and heroin.

This article courtesy of Bruce Thomson, M.S., M.S.W., all rights reserved.

Bruce is a Psychotherapist in Private Practice in Ann Arbor. He is the Chair of the Addiction and Recovery Special Interest Group for the NASW, MI, and he lectures on the brain chemistry of addiction for the University of Michigan, the NASW, and in schools throughout the state.