Opium addiction

Luttgens, W.F.,. Endocarditis in main line opium addicts, Arch. Intern. Med., 83, 653, 1949. 

Opium has been used as a medicine for hundreds of years, inevitably creating countless addicts. Scientists have conducted a never-ending search for effective cures for opium addiction, morphine addiction (morphinism), and heroin addiction. For most of its history, opium addiction was treated as a disease with no cure, and doctors concerned themseives with treating the symptoms of addiction rather than the root cause. As a result, other opiates were used to lessen the effects of withdrawal. The addict is placed on a regimen of opiates that slowly decrease over time, weaning the addict from his or her addiction. This process of treatment is still used today. 

Over the years, scores of seemingly counterintuitive methods have been tried to cure the addict. When morphine was first isolated and synthesized, it was considered to be, and utilized as, a cure for opium addiction. Later, heroin was created, and used as a treatment for morphinism. In the mid-twentieth century, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) likewise was tried as a therapy. The sad truth is that even today there is no real cure for any of the various forms of opiate addiction. 

In the Shan State (excluding Wa region), opium addiction affected 0.60 per cent of the rural adult population in 2006. Within the survey area, the average level of addiction was 2.16 per cent in villages with opium poppy cultivation, which is significantly higher than in villages where opium poppy was not cultivated (0.25 per cent). 

The case records used in this chapter are from the Records of the Philadelphia Committee for Clinical Study of Opium Addiction, housed at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Patient names have been changed. The stenographer s words are recorded here with misspellings corrected. 

HO-DMT is a minor metabolite of DMT in man, and it was studied for the same reasons. Could this compound play a role in explaining the activity of the parent dialkylamine It was explored in a series of subjects who had responded spectacularly to DMT. The five volunteers in this study were former opium addicts who were serving sentences for violation of United States narcotics laws. They were administered 6-HO-DMT at either 0.75 mg/Kg (one subject) or 1.0 mg/Kg (four subjects) and reported no differences from the inactive placebo control. The objective measures (blood pressure, respiration and heart rate, pupillary dilation) confirmed this absence of activity at this level. The active control drug was DMT itself, and it showed the expected responses in all regards. 

Morphine was the first limited success of attempts to improve on opium. The medical community was initially hopeful that, in addition to its analgesic power, morphine would be the break-through drug for treating opium addiction. In fact, morphine was successful in that regard opium addicts that were given morphine were often cured of their addiction. However, it became... 

Treatment programs are also needed to address the concerns of opiate users in developing countries. For example, some Afghan refugee camps have found a need to treat refugees for opium addiction. These refugees include laborers and those dealing with the pain of war wounds. In such situations, treatment options may include alternative medication and education. 

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the addictive qualities of opium and other opiates, such as heroin, codeine, laudanum, and Demerol, were a growing concern. However, so little was known about these drugs that heroin was often used in an effort to fight opium addiction. 

HO-DMT is a minor metabolite of DMT in man, and it was studied for the same reasons. Could this compound play a role in explaining the activity of the parent dialkylamine It was explored in a series of subjects who had responded spectacularly to DMT. The five volunteers in this study were former opium addicts... 

The Chinese forces, decimated by ten years of rampant opium addiction within the Imperial Army, proved no match for the... 

Open sponsorship of mass-scale opium addiction of targeted colonial and neocolonial populations by the British Crown ... 

Adding to the opium addiction was the fact that British pharmaceutical houses had begun commercial production of morphine in the years leading up to the Civil War and made large quantities available to both armies. The British firms misrepresented the morphine as a "nonaddictive" pain killer and even had the audacity to push it as a cure for opium addiction. 

The genera Mitragyna and Ourouparia (Uncaria) (Rubiaceae) flourish in widely distributed tropical and subtropical regions. Several Mitragyna species that are large trees indigenous to West Africa, Southeastern Asia, and the Philippines find commercial use in the timber and paper industries. The leaves of M. speciosa Korth. are chewed as a narcotic in Siam, and, in common with leaves of M. parvifolia Korth., enjoy an undeserved reputation as a cure for opium addiction. In West Africa the bark of M. africana Korth. is used as a febrifuge. 

Figure 1 (a) The 200 Deutschmark note commemorating Paul Ehrlichmann s contributions to biomedical science included the structure of (PhAs)6, which he developed as a medicinal agent, (b) Letterhead for the Keeley Institute in Lancaster, WI, highlighting the use of gold preparations to treat opium addiction, drunkenness, and neurasthemia in the 1890s... 

Through a biomimetic approach, tabersonine is also the semisynthetic precursor of vincamine, a Eburna alkaloid isolated from Vinca minor, and is used for cerebral insufficiency in Europe. Tabemanthe iboga has a long history of use as a stimulant in tropical Africa its main active principle is ibogaine, a controlled substance in many countries (Fig. 40). It is being actively investigated in the United States for its potential to induce opium addiction withdrawal. 

The Opium War, circa 1840, was a valiant struggle by the Chinese to prevent the British East India Company from creating opium addicts in China, due to its need to unload all the opium it had purchased in other areas of the st. The Chinese lost, and ever since, for some reason, the public in the West has carried around the idea of "the Chinese opium addict" as some sort of vague foreign threat As Watson reputedly used to say, "Holmes, I really wish you wouldn t smoke so much of that stuff."... 

Up to the early 20th century, it was not only the poorer segments of the populace, who consumed drugs well-to-do citizens and intellectuals also indulged themselves in search for new adventure and the pursuit of the ultimate high . Many famous personalities fell victim to opium addiction (Tab. 5.5). 

Byron, George Gordon Noei (Lord) 1788-1824 Author, poet Opium addiction... 

Coieridge, Samuel Taylor 1772-1834 Poet, Kubla Khan" Opium addiction... 

Quincey,Thomasde 1785-1859 Author, "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" Opium addiction... 

Richelieu, Louis F. A. du Plessis de 1696-1788 Cardinal Opium addiction... 

Thompson, Francis 1859-1907 Poet Opium addiction experiences... 

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