Smoking, of opium

States—the 1875 San Francisco Ordinance— banned the smoking of opium. 

F The San Francisco Ordinance banned opium dens but not the actual smoking of opium. 

When smoking of opium became fashionable in China during the second half of the 17th century - presumably in response of the ban on tobacco smoking under Emperor Tsung Cheng-, the East India Company cultivated the poppy in Bengal as a source of opium (Fig. 5.38). 

About 120 species of plants classified within the family Rubiaceae are used in traditional medicine of Asia and the Pacific, of which, Mitragyna speciosa has been used throughout Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand and Borneo, as an intoxicant. The leaves are chewed alone or mixed with betel, or else prepared for smoking like opium, and its use is legally prescribed in Thailand. 

Opioids are administered in several ways. Opium was most commonly taken recreationally by smoking, but intravenous administration has become most common since the isolation of opium alkaloids and invention of the hypodermic needle. The development of heroin from morphine at the turn of the twentieth century led to more intense euphoric effects and greater risk for addiction. Heroin may also be snorted, or it can be smoked when added to a medium such as tobacco. Medically, opioids are commonly given through oral, subcutaneous, intravenous, transdermal, or rectal routes. 

Opium Street Names Auntie Emma, big O. black stuff, block, gum, hop, ope, tar (brand generic called tincture of opium, laudanum, paregoric (CIII), B O suppositories [CIII]) Use Some medical uses (antidiarrheal, antitussive, antispas-modic) illegally used to produce morphine and h oin can be swallowed or smoked Actions Narcotic contains morphine Effects Pain relief, euphoria, drowsiness/N, constipation, confusion, sedation, resp dqjression and arrest, tol -ance, addiction, unconsciousness, coma, death... 

The method of the opium den constitutes the primary process used by the majority of opium smokers throughout history, but today, smoking opium by other methods is more prevalent in the West. There are other traditional methods of smoking... 

Laudanum was any of a number of tinctures or mixtures of opium with other materials. In the nineteenth century tincture of opium was given the acronym GOM (God s Own Medicine). Opium was smoked and eaten recreationally and to boost the output of natives at hard labor thoughout the Near and Far East for hundreds of years. 

In the U.S. opioid abuse was accentuated by the unrestricted availability of opium until the early years of the 20th century and by the influx of opium-smoking immigrants from the East. In addition, the invention of the hypodermic needle led to the parenteral use of morphine and to a more severe variety of compulsive drug abuse. 

Hydromorphone and its natural opioid relatives have been used to relieve pain, treat a variety of ailments, and create euphoric feelings at least as far back as the time of the ancient Greeks. In early Greek history, the priests controlled the use of opium and ascribed to it supernatural powers. In the fifth century bc, Hippocrates, the father of medicine, dismissed the supernatural attributes of opium. Hippocrates believed opium had cathartic, narcotic, hypnotic, and styptic properties. He believed that all diseases had a natural origin and could be cured by natural therapies. All of the natural opiates historically were derived from opium poppy plants. The liquid extracted from the poppy seeds was typically dried to create a concentrated powder. These extracts were then smoked, eaten, or drank. 

The smoking and sale of opium in China is made illegal because of the many cases of addiction and overdoses however, its importation remains legal. 

The latex obtained by incision of the unripe seed capsule of the poppy, Papaver somniferum, and known as opium is the source of several pharmacologically important alkaloids. Dioskurides, in about a.d. 77, referred to both the latex (opos) and a total plant extract (mekonion) and to the use of oral and inhaled (pipe-smoked) opium to induce a state of euphoria and sedation. Since before the Christian era the therapeutic properties of opium were evident, with the first written reference to poppy juice being by Theophrastus in the third century b.c. 

Opium can be taken by mouth or it can be smoked, but since smoking was unknown in Europe and Asia until Columbus brought news of it from the New World, opium smoking did not exist before 1492. Many oral preparations of opium were made in the past. Two that survive into our own times are paregoric, a dilute tincture of opium combined with camphor, and deodorized tincture of opium, formerly known as laudanum, which is more, concentrated. 

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