What was opium used for in china

The U. Court indicts Khun Sa, leader of the Shan United Army and reputed drug warlord, on heroin trafficking charges. Attorney General's office charges Khun Sa with importing 3, pounds of heroin into New York City over the course of eighteen months, as well as holding him responsible for the source of the heroin seized in Bangkok.

Drug Enforcement Agency DEA launches its operation to destroy thousands of acres of opium poppies from the fields of the Golden Triangle region. Yet, even in opium is being cultivated illicitly in Thailand, but in smaller areas. October31, Heroin takes another well-known victim. Twenty-three-year-old actor River Phoenix dies of a heroin-cocaine overdose, the same "speedball" combination that killed comedian John Belushi.

January, Efforts to eradicate opium at its source remain unsuccessful. The Clinton Administration orders a shift in policy away from the anti- drug campaigns of previous administrations. Instead the focus includes "institution building" with the hope that by "strengthening democratic governments abroad, [it] will foster law-abiding behavior and promote legitimate economic opportunity.

Not much research to investigate why more and more youth are becoming addicts. Why escape from unmanageable process of survival and competition. April Kurt Cobain, lead singer of the Seattle-based alternative rock band, Nirvana, dies of heroin-related suicide.

According to U. November International drug trafficking organizations, including China, Nigeria, Colombia and Mexico are said to be "aggressively marketing heroin in the United States and Europe. Survey of addicts and illicit cultivation areas with the intention of devising a practical alternative development plan starts in October in Lohit district. Booth, Martin. Opium : A History. Flowers in the Blood : The Story of Opium. New York: Franklin Watts, The Sumerians referred to it as Hul Gul, the 'joy plant.

The art of poppy-culling would continue from the Assyrians to the Babylonians who in turn would pass their knowledge onto the Egyptians. The trade route included the Phoenicians and Minoans who move the profitable item across the Mediterranean Sea into Greece, Carthage, and Europe. The Dhanvantri Nighantu also describes the medical properties of opium.

Opium had become a taboo subject for those in circles of learning during the Holy Inquisition. In the eyes of the Inquisition, anything from the East was linked to the Devil. The halucinating effects were instantaneous as they discovered. It was a practice the Chinese considered barbaric and subversive. These black pills or "Stones of Immortality" were made of opium thebaicum, citrus juice and quintessence of gold and prescribed as painkillers.

Opium is given daily to Rajput soldiers. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, Musto, David F. New York: Oxford University Press, Opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. In the capital city of Thebes, Egyptians begin cultivation of opium thebaicum, grown in their famous poppy fields. On the island of Cyprus, the "Peoples of the Sea" craft surgical-quality culling knives to harvest opium, which they would cultivate, trade and smoke before the fall of Troy.

Hippocrates, "the father of medicine", dismisses the magical attributes of opium but acknowledges its usefulness as a narcotic and styptic in treating internal diseases, diseases of women and epidemics.

Alexander the Great introduced opium to the people of Persia and India. AD Opium thebaicum, from the Egytpian fields at Thebes, is first introduced to China by Arab traders.

Ancient Indian medical work namely 'Bhavaprakasha' describes the use of Opium. Ancient Indian medical treatises ' The Shodal Gadanigrah ' and ' Sharangdhar Samahita ' describe the use of opium for diarrohea and sexual debility. Opium disappears for two hundred years from European historical record but not from the East where its usage increased especially amongst soldiers and by medicine men.

Opium was used for medicinal purposes in China for the treatment of dysentery and cholera and other diseases. The Portugese, while trading along the East China Sea, initiate the smoking of opium. During the height of the Reformation, opium is reintroduced into European medical literature by Paracelsus as laudanum. Portugese merchants carrying cargo of Indian opium through Macao direct its trade flow into China. Ships chartered by Queen Elizabeth I were instructed, to purchase the finest Indian opium and transport it back to England.

Rajput troops fighting for the Mughals introduce the habit of taking opium to Assam. English apothecary, Thomas Sydenham, introduces Sydenham's Laudanum, a compound of opium, sherry wine and herbs. The Dutch export shipments of Indian opium to China and to the islands of Southeast Asia; the Dutch introduced the practice of smoking opium in a tobacco pipe to the Chinese. Chinese emperor, Yung Cheng, issues an edict prohibiting the smoking of opium and its domestic sale, except under license for use as medicine.

Linnaeus, the father of botany, first classifies the poppy, Papaver somniferum as 'sleep-inducing', in his book Genera Plantarum. The British East India Company's export of opium to China reaches a staggering two thousand chests of opium per year.

The British East India Company establishes a monopoly on the opium trade. The import of opium into China becomes a contraband trade. East India Company introduced Bengal Regulation IV to enable appointment of Opium Agents for purchase of opium from cultivators and its processing at factories owned by the company at Patna and Ghazipur.

Chinese emperor, Kia King, bans opium completely, making trade and poppy cultivation illegal. The British Levant Company purchases nearly half of all of the opium coming out of Smyrna, Turkey strictly for importation to Europe and the United States.

Friedrich Sertuerner of Paderborn, Germany discovers the active ingredient of opium by dissolving it in acid then neutralizing it with ammonia.

East India Company prohibits transit of Malwa Opium or any other non-East India company opium through its territories. English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and other English literary personalities experiment with opium intended for strict recreational use--simply for a high and taken at extended, non-addictive intervals.

Thomas De Quincey publishes his autobiographical account of opium addiction, 'Confessions of an English Opium-eater. The East India Company Government began negotiations with the Independent States of Central India and Rajputanas with the view to procure for the company the entire opium produced in this region. The British dependence on opium for medicinal and recreational use reaches an all time high as 22, pounds of opium is imported from Turkey and India. Elizabeth Barrett Browning falls under the spell of morphine.

March 18, Lin Tse-Hsu, Imperial Chinese Commissioner in charge of suppressing the opium traffic, orders all foreign traders to surrender their opium. New Englanders bring 24, pounds of opium into the United States. To combat the severe drug problem facing the nation, the Chinese government has adopted the Methadone Maintenance Treatment program, a multi-faceted therapeutic approach that aims to reduce the health and social problem induced by drug epidemics.

In addition, traditional Chinese medicine, including herbal therapy and acupuncture, both found to be effective in the prevention of relapse and causes few side effects, making them useful for the treatment of opiate addiction. With continuous application of these therapies and managements that have been proved to be effective in harm reduction in the western countries, we believe that drug abuse and its related problems in China will be brought under control.

Opium was becoming one of, if not the most common medicine of the time. There were no limits on the drug's use and no restrictions on who could purchase it. Twelve-year-olds might stop at a druggist to pick up a bottle for their mother. In a typical case of addiction, a patient would start taking laudanum or opium pills to treat a headache, insomnia, diarrhea, stomach pains, cholera or a toothache, "and then three years later the person is still using it," Gray says.

Historians do not have records that connect patients who were becoming addicted directly to opium unloaded on Boston wharves. But the traders returning from China are a likely source of the drug. It's not clear how much opium was coming into Boston in the early s, when doctors sound the alarm. Boston merchants were the dominant American opium traders. The conversation about opium addiction continues in the BMSJ through the s and into the next decade. Many writers warn about accidental overdoses.

One writer argues that a mother or her apothecary should be held responsible for the death of a 3-month-old infant given drops of an alcohol-based opium medicine. Opium addiction does not reach epidemic proportions in the U. It was a legacy of the Civil War, when the opium derivative morphine was widely distributed to both Confederate and Union soldiers. But Courtwright says the real driver was the introduction of hypodermic needles, which delivered strong doses of morphine that produced immediate relief and were overused.

Massachusetts would not be particularly hard hit during this opium epidemic, but as it builds, state public health officials worry. Doctors and pharmacists report that opium consumption is increasing every year and urge the state to prepare for this insidious foe. Fitch Edward Oliver, a physician at what was then Boston City Hospital, distributes a questionnaire to physicians and druggists across Massachusetts. He compiles the results in an essay called " The Use and Abuse of Opium ," which is included in the state's third annual health report , published in