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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
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)
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).
The effects page for opium seem not to exist at all. Perpahs listing the effects could aid in an understanding the drug.
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"?
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.
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
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.
The following by User:64.229.133.117 is too personal for Wikipedia.
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.
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.
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?
Was China the first country to legislate against opium use? Is China the birth place of modern drug control legislation?
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").
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)
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)
what are the affects of cocaine and opium when smoked? a friend of mine has started doing this.
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
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?
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)
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)
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)
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)
what are the recent problems about opuim
203.87.187.190 05:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)what's the best for me
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)
One of the sentences in the "modern usage" section looks like it needs to be changed. the sentence reads:
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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Smoking opium must alleviate some pain. We know morphine is derived from it and morphine is definitely useful but what about opium for minor medical problems. --69.151.62.226 (talk) 08:51, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm... here's a philosophical question. A recent editor sourced the statement about the winged deity in a bas-relief from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud to two reputable sources: [2] [3].
The comic part is that these sources are both copied precisely from the old version of this article, including the original unsourced statement. Eventually, if I can stop snickering, I should try to decide what to make of that. Mike Serfas 04:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll see what I can dig up.--Iosef U T C 02:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
the British prefered to trade opium instead of silver because at that time the prevalent economic thought was mercantilism; where the total economy/wealth is viewed as finite 'pie' measured solely on gold/silver and other precious metals one holds, once the silver is traded for something else, it's gone as far as the economy is concerned (as in a zero/sum game), the value of goods/services the silver bought were not considered addition to the economy. in that view only precious metals counted as real wealth, anything else common/perishable such as raw materials don't count for much. 38.104.78.230 (talk) 21:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
For years this article contained an unsourced statement which in my opinion really wasn't very nice. "At the Metropolitan Museum's Assyrian relief gallery, a winged deity in a bas-relief from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, dedicated in 879 BC, bears a bouquet of poppy capsules on long stems, described by the museum as "pomegranates". Early versions even said "prudishly" described as pomegranates! It was unsourced, but perhaps people felt they had to leave it in - it was once the only mention in the article of any ancient use of opium. Well, for the record, I found the museum with a quick Web search, [4] wrote up their help desk and asked what they had to say. In a few days I received a response from Kim Benzel, the assistant curator, admitting that there was always room for debate on interpreting highly stylized bas-reliefs, and both plants were known to the Assyrians, but they generally more closely resemble pomegranates, which are better represented in iconography of the period. She suggested further reading on the topic:
While there may be some interesting possibilities here for original research, I see no reason to doubt her expert opinion. Wikipedia owes the museum an apology for this slur against its integrity. Mike Serfas 23:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
This is the question that I'd like to see answered most of all. There are countless descriptions of the addictiveness of opium dating from the last three centuries, but before then, I'm not finding them. During the Islamic Renaissance, it was apparently a drug available to poor people who couldn't afford to go to the doctor - without causing social disruption. During the Roman Empire it was widely known and used medically, but one reference I found guessed that there was little if any hedonistic use or addiction. I think there must be many more sources that weigh in on this issue that can be added. But perhaps the explanation is among the interesting biochemistry and evolutionary biology still hidden in the poppies. Mike Serfas 03:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
While trying to tighten the history of prohibition in China, I decided the list with the three Americans who made fortunes on opium really doesn't belong. (John Jacob Astor, James Grant Forbes, Warren Delano, Jr.) I know this is a contentious point (see Talk:Opium/Archive 1), but the problem is that if the Americans are listed surely a larger number of British subjects should be listed, and if they're listed that's quite a bit of space to give to a list of names without context, even before you start listing famous grandchildren. This information definitely should be featured prominently in the individual biographies of these people. If you can cite a source that says "Lots of prominent American politicians including X,Y, and Z owe their upper-class status to dope-dealing ancestors" then that would be a good thing to have in the article, but otherwise what we have is just an arbitrary subset of a long list. Mike Serfas 17:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
At WT:PHARM#Opium_and_Apolipoprotein_A1 some time ago, Fvasconcellos suggested putting this article up for peer review. I delayed doing this until I'd fixed some of the obvious flaws, but it's getting near time for wider input.
As a preliminary I've put the automated script review output at Talk:Opium/autopeerreview for reference. Mike Serfas 03:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
P.S. At this time all the automatic peer review points are satisfied, except for "Can't" in a book title and the undisputed need for a thorough copy edit. Of course, real reviewers may not be so easy. Mike Serfas 03:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll be reviewing this article over the next few days for GA status. Though I am obviously not finished, at first glance, the article looks like it's in excellent shape, and GA status shouldn't be too hard to obtain. There's a couple of minor issues that you might want to begin fixing now:
I'll provide more comments as I complete my review. This should be enough to get editors started, though. Though, based on my initial assessment, I am not expecting major work to be done - mostly minor little things, some of which I may end up just fixing myself,... Cheers! Dr. Cash 21:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
The changes to the external links are good. I made another minor modification, explicitly stating the specific information that is being linked to from those sites (without that, it kind of looks, on the surface, like the link is going to the main page of the site).
I've basically completed my review, and the article pretty much nails the Good Article criteria, though there is one major issue and a few minor ones that still needs to be corrected prior to GA status:
There are also a couple of minor issues. While the article is very well cited, there are a few gaps. Most notably:
Other than that, this is a very good article, and very interesting. I made a few minor changes, mostly grammatical, as I went along. The most major ones of those were to the infobox (adding clarification of additional countries to the production & consumption listings, to make it more obvious that it's not all produced in afghanistan neither is it all consumed in the US). I also alphabetized the further reading list, and combined the 'online' items with the 'text' items (I don't see a reason to separate these - they're all useful, it's just that the ones online are easier to obtain than the others.
Good work! Dr. Cash 07:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
I am suggesting merging a section from the article Smoking to here. Any discussions about this should take place here. Naacats 22:04, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Is anyone for or opposed to this? We need at least a minimum consensus on the matter Naacats 04:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I have a request for details pertaining to early prohibitions against opium use at Talk:Prohibition (drugs)#Earliest prohibition, and citations, which perhaps some editors of opium can help with. Thanks! --Daniel11 16:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone know how opium was transported into Europe and by whom. Did the opium that was used in Europe come from the Middle East? Did the middle age "doctors" of Europe get alot of people addicted to opium just to profit from the peoples addiction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.186.0.122 (talk) 20:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
From the article: "Recreational use of the drug began in China in the fifteenth century". Hope I'm not offending anyone, but I find this laughable. Were magic mushrooms never used "recreationally" until the hippies came along? The definitive change has not been in the use, but the cultural perception. And anyway, even if I'm wrong on that, opium use for it's euphoric properties is as old as time. --MQDuck 03:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
That infobox photo is terrible... That's a picture of opium poppies, not opium... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lelandrb (talk • contribs) 00:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Where in the article do we describe eradication efforts? I note that some have been suffering from contradictory estimates from "differing methodologies." "US claims Afghan opium progress" (BBC) 69.228.211.27 (talk) 07:24, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Colloquially and especially noted on these online drug use forums these days, it is an extremely common occurrence that "opium" is being smoked as a recreational drug. However, raw opium extract doesn't exist in the United States (you can find home made poppy tea but not the raw opium extract these people are thinking they are getting): What these people are doing, unbeknownst to them, is black tar heroin. True opium should smell strongly plant matter, heroin smells like acetic acid (vinegar), can be orange or yellowish in color, and can be injected when broken down in a solution (opium cannot be because of it's codeine content). The amount of raw morphine in opium is no where near the amount of acetylated morphine in the content of black tar heroin. People in the U.S. should know what they are doing, and it is not "opium", there has not been a DEA report of finding opium extract in the U.S. and that should tell these people something. It is heroin. Not opium. 4.255.49.220 (talk) 01:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I removed "Powdered Opium" from the opioids template as it simply redirected to the opium article. However "Granulated Opium", "Raw Opium", "Smoking Opium" & maybe even "Poppy Straw Concentrate" all too had redirect links on the opioid template that might very well rightly have sections here in this article if they are so notable. I simply did not want them to be overlooked being removed from the template if they can indeed muster their own article. Nagelfar (talk) 21:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
as of now it reads under retail price $3 per gram Retail price $16,000 per kilogram that seems ridiculous, why would something, when bought in large increments, be more than 4 times more expensive, than when it is bought in small increments. maybe only one is the retail price and the other something else (what?), but it is terribly confusing.118.172.70.237 (talk) 19:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
$16,000 per kilo ($16/gram) is probably the street value per police/DEA estimates (and of course they always use the highest estimates to boast the value of their busts). the $3 per gram is probably something like 'wholesale' price where the opium poppy is harvested. 38.104.78.230 (talk) 21:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
The Map indicating "Main producers of opium for the heroin trade" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HeroinWorld-en.svg) is extremely misleading. Iran produces no illegal opium or heroin. Not only is opium production in Iran totally banned, illegal, but also carries a penalty of death by lethal injection or strangulation. Like all other countries Iran has a limited number of globally recognized opium fields for research, medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, and despite the outrageous claim from the map, the number of the legal opium fields in Iran is LESS than the number of legal opium poppy fields in France or Spain, let alone claiming heroin production. According to U.N. statistics, Iran has no role, and no contribution to the worlds illegal heroin production. Iran's contribution to the worlds illicit opium production for 2008 was... guess...... 0... 2007.... again 0.... 2006 again 0... and so on (www.un.org & www.unodc.org). The map maker is obviously not a professional in the subject, or is a professional but has a bias or a defamatory intention when it comes to Iran, and to some extent Pakistan. However, even though opium production in Iran is none existent, Afghan opium and heroin is illegally trafficked through Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan, via lorries, air, cross-mountain camel bandits, and tunnels. Iran's border patrol confiscates more Afghan heroin and opium annually than any other country in the world, however, the trafficking through Iran is less than what is trafficked through Russia both from Afghanistan, meaning Russia is a bigger conveyor belt for Afghan Heroin than Iran or Pakistan. Never the less, Trafficking and production are 2 separate topics and factors, rendering the map inaccurate, misleading, and defamatory to Persians who are not just struggling to stop Afghan heroin trafficking from reaching Europe and other parts of West Asia but are also victims of the influx of cheap Afghan heroin/opium itself, let alone being mislabeled as producers and accomplices to the global Heroin production. Pakistan though does produce opium for illicit use, but the numbers are very insignificant to even bear mentioning. Iran alongside Russia, and Turkey is only a frequent route for Heroin trafficking, but has no contribution to illicit Heroin or Opium production. I will remove the map until the creator fixes this problem. Please do not upload/create maps before running them through the discussion group first. Things like this results in misinformation to many, and possibly students who then print out the map thinking it is reliable information. --93.97.181.187 (talk) 04:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
and that they say that the Senlis report is out of date and that they,
as the largest producers of morphine in the world, were never asked to contribute to its
findings: [5] --Janeyjo (talk) 11:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
This chart is misleading and should be replaced. 1) The peak value of 41000 metric tons in 1906/1907 is disputed. This estimate includes 35,000 metic tons (584,400 piculs) for Chinese production, but the Qing Court estimated only 8,800 metric tons (146,000 piculs) in this same year.[1] See also below for response from the British Medical Journal. 2) The chart apparently mixes figures for Chinese production and import with figures for total global production. 3) Opium varies widely in morphine content.[2] 4) Non-opiate pain relievers and anti-biotics were not widely available until the 20th century, and opium was used medically in China and elsewhere for pain, diarrhea and fever.[2] 5) Has only four data points between 1850 and 1950, misleadingly implying a sharp peak in production. 6) Missing labels on the Y-axis.
Rewriting history, A response to the 2008 World Drug Report, Transnational Institute, June 2008:
A lot of opium was used for medicinal purposes, which are treated now by other medications. In order to compare production and consumption figures a century apart one should take into account that a lot of the use in the past is now replaced with other regular medicines and remedies to treat these diseases, such as antibiotics as well as synthetic opioids and other lighter painkillers, the so-called antipyretic analgesics including paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen.
Another question is how reliable the 1906/07 production figures are. They were based on a report of the Chinese delegation to the International Opium Commission (IOC) in Shanghai in 1909. These estimates were already challenged at the IOC itself. “The statistics in this report are of very little value,” according to an article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), of January 8, 1910, about the report of the Chinese delegation. “They were challenged by the British delegates, with the result that the Chinese delegation has represented to the Government the necessity of obtaining more reliable data. The figures dealing with the growth of the poppy and the consumption of opium are, as a rule, nothing more than rough estimates or mere expressions of opinion.”
The production rapidly declined to 22,200 metric tons in 1908, and to 4,000 metric tons in 1911, when the eradication campaigns due to the anti-opium edict issued by the Qing government in 1906 – mandating the cessation of poppy cultivation over a ten-year period and requiring licenses for smokers – began to have an impact. However, other sources quote a production of 16,300 metric tons in 1904, well below the peak in 1906/07 and the 1908 figures.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Likiva (talk • contribs) 11:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)On the other hand the figures of 2007 seem to be too low. According to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) there is now an unmet demand in opiates. Ironically, the current drug control regulations hamper access to controlled opiate medications for therapeutic use. Many patients are unable to access morphine, methadone or an equivalent opioid. Global medical morphine consumption would rise five times if countries would make morphine available at the level of the calculated need, according to a recent WHO estimate.
Article has a lot of unsourced statements, tagged from Mar 2008, Oct 2008, Jan 2009, Sep 2009, Dec 2009 and the introduction is tagged as being too long; article also quite a few dead external links. Tom B (talk) 18:42, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
References
I removed two images. This image of an old book is unnecessary. [6] And this image is a fantasy based on exaggerated and fictional accounts of London opium dens. [7] Likiva (talk) 09:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Were jewish doctors the main source of opium for europeans during the middle ages? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.99.132.30 (talk) 18:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
It would be nice if it were legal to grow and sale Opium as food because it is a supressed food. The first book of the Holy Scriptures in Genesis says YEHOVAH God gave man all plants bearing seed as FOOD. That is right OPIUM is a gift from YEHOVAH God to man as a FOOD. It should be legal to grow and consume. 99.148.204.217 (talk) 03:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
The articles states without citation "After 1860, opium use continued to increase with widespread domestic production in China, until more than 25% of the male population were regular consumers by 1905." Although I'm no expert, this seems pretty hard to believe. Moreover, I know that there is a fair amount of anti-British propaganda about opium use in China connected with the opium wars. Is a citation available? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.78.34.253 (talk) 03:10, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
Page 19
http://criticalasianstudies.org/assets/files/bcas/v08n03.pdf
Rajmaan (talk) 16:10, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
http://www.thailex.info/THAILEX/THAILEXENG/lexicon/opiumgebruik.htm should be http://www.thailex.asia/THAILEX/THAILEXENG/lexicon/opiumgebruik.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.100.224.17 (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
I have a book that states otherwise. Like I stated before the educated are too far away from what is real in this country and in this world. Are you ready to take responsibility for your children? This in no wasy is a threat, I am the furthest thing from stupid and the educated are a lot smarter than I am. I believe the money problem is a worst addiction then drugs. But I can certainly understand why only certain children and people are dying in the streets. I know the rich want to keep their families safe. I understand that fear all too well. But unfortunately my life has been dedicated by someone other than me, to protect our country, no exceptions. I at least understand it just can't be about this country, Whatever I feel for this country has grown into a love for all countries and their people. I can barely breathe as long as I see the danger. And what is the "why". But then I suppose someone rich bought a lot of us. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.177.242.131 (talk) 03:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
The article says that a modern method of producing opium is to harvest and process mature plants by machine. This is simply not so. No opium is produced from mature plants (poppy straw). Morphine and other opioids are produced from poppy straw, but not opium. The mature poppy straw has very little moisture, and thus no latex, and no opium. In the process of maturing, the fruits not only dehydrate, but the materials of which they consist also undergo some chemical changes.Nomenclator (talk) 17:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
In this Wikipedia article it is said "As seen in case studies today, the use of opiates in medicine, namely morphine, is seen as a safe and effective form of treatment for pain even if given over longer periods of time if given in controlled doses.". Is that really correct? Maybe this should be cited from the article:
"Whereas it was previously thought that unlimited dose escalation was at least safe, evidence now suggests that prolonged, high-dose opioid therapy may be neither safe nor effective. It is therefore important that physicians make every effort to control indiscriminate prescribing, even when they are under pressure by patients to increase the dose of opioids."
Especially in the light of this news article: Rx Painkiller Deaths Rising Faster in Women http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/PainManagement/40243 Nopedia (talk) 22:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Not that it's bad or uninteresting, but it's reached the point where it should probably be spun off in bulk as History of opium and then dealt with in broader terms here at the main page. Should help with keeping this page well sourced and less edit-heavy and getting it relisted as a GA. — LlywelynII 13:57, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Apropos the above, I'd like to canvass opinion on splitting out some of this article's "Prohibition and conflict in China" section into History of opium in China, itself a new article based on content drawn from Opium Wars, which is on the cusp of a merger with the First Opium War and Second Opium War following a consensus. The rationale is as follows:
► Philg88 ◄ talk 12:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Just to note, there is a push to separate the cultural aspect of drugs from the purely historical. Opium use has a huge cultural aspect distinct from various wars and prohibition efforts. Opium culture could certainly warrant its own article. --Thoric (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2014 (UTC)