Opium

Opium

Museum der Kulturen Basel (Ed.)

Christoph Merian Verlag

CONTENT

FOREWORD 8 Anna Schmid THE OPIUM PHENOMENON – AN INTRODUCTION 10 Doris Buddenberg, Anna Schmid FROM THE POPPY PLANT TO RAW OPIUM 21 Doris Buddenberg FROM THE FIRST CRUMBS OF OPIUM TO CONTEMPORARY POPPY CULTIVATION: 24 A CHRONOLOGY Compiled by Doris Buddenberg A HISTORY OF OPIUM FROM THE 17 T H TO THE 21 ST CENTURIES 48 Alfred W. McCoy A SHORT HISTORY AND CRITIQUE OF DRUG PROHIBITION 66 IN THE 20 T H CENTURY Jakob Tanner “THE HISTORY OF OPIUM IS ALSO THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE”: 82 OPIUM IN MEDICINE, CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY Michael Kessler OPIUM, OPIATES AND ADVANCES IN NEUROSCIENCE 86 Barbara Remberg & Kalman Szendrei OLFACTORY CHARACTERISTICS OF OPIUM: THE FIRST ANALYSIS 89 Barbara Remberg OPIUM SMOKING: THE NEEDLE, THE LAMP, THE PIPE 99 Steven Martin

“IT IS ALWAYS A WOMAN WHO INTRODUCES THE OPIUM POPPY TO MANKIND”: 131 MYTHS OF ORIGIN Doris Buddenberg OPIUM AND THE ORIENT: THE ALIEN WITHIN US Barry Milligan

138

OPIUM IN THE WAKEFUL NIGHT Doris Buddenberg

146

INTENSIFICATION: THE CATEGORIES OF TIME, SPACE, COLOUR UNDER OPIUM 152 Doris Buddenberg SEDUCTION AND DETERRENCE 177 Doris Buddenberg OPIUM – THE WAKING OF THE FORCES OF A DIFFERENT MEMORY 182 Friederike Kretzen BIBLIOGRAPHY 190 OBJECT INDEX 194 CONTRIBUTORS 196 IMPRINT 198

Image p. 6 / 7 > Until the middle 1990 s, with an annual harvest of approximately 130 tons of illegal opium, Dir District was the main producing area in Pakistan. Today, poppy cultivation is negligible; partially as the result of a UNDCP alternative development project (1986 – 1998) with a budget of 35 million US dollars.

Blossoming poppy field in Dir District, Pakistan, 1991. © Doris Buddenberg; photographer: Sajid Munir

FOREWORD Anna Schmid

Drugs are common to all societies – and cultivated by many. The wish for altered states of consciousness seems to be a human constant. At one end of the spectrum, drugs are cultivated and obtained from natural resources such as plants, at the other, they are developed and produced synthetically by pharmaceutical companies across the world. Between these two poles we have a multitude of hybrid forms. Irrespective of the way drugs are produced, it is a matter of cultural valuation and economic conditions whether a society approves of them or whether they are demonized as dangerous and harmful. In other words, the cultural and economic mechanisms that classify coffee, tea, sugar or cacao as drugs are the same as far as coca, cannabis, alcohol or tobacco are concerned. Whether and when a substance is declared illegal is a question of collective judgement, and, if yes, a matter of legislation.

But drugs also play an important role in religious practices. In the case of a shaman’s journey to the netherworld, drugs may not only be tolerated, they might even be indispensable. The anthropological literature includes many examples from all parts of the world. When people wish to ritually communicate with supernatural powers, beings or worlds, they often need to transcend the state of natural consciousness; drugs are one way of achieving this. While in some cases the production and consumption of a specific drug is restricted to a particular region – for example, khat around the Horn of Africa or betel nut in South and Southeast Asia –, others such as tobacco or psychoactive drugs are consumed across the globe. What is interesting from an anthropological perspective is to find out which drugs are used in what contexts, how their effects are judged and how they are embedded in the respective social fabric, or, put differently: why is cocaine considered the drug of Wall Street and alcohol the buzz of the little guy on Main Street? And where does opium come in here?

Archaeological findings show that opium was common around the Lake of Constance, Lake Pfäffikon as well as Lake Geneva from the Neolithic period up to the Bronze Age, probably not only in its wild plant form but also as a semi-wild species or even as a cultivated plant.

Some experts even venture to claim that back then the cultivation of poppy was more common than that of wheat and barley. What we do not know, however, is whether the poppy c­ ultivated in central Europe at that time was the opium poppy as we know it today (Gelpke 1966: 33; Seefelder 1989: 10, Saunders 2014: 5f.) and, if yes, whether it served as a narcotic drug.

The history of opium poppy has spawned many speculations. At the same time the plant was credited with an astonishingly wide range of qualities – from its powers as a healing drug, including the danger of addiction, to its role as a symbol of death and remembrance.

In descriptions of opium, fear and rejection are addressed as are fascination, enchantment and appeal, or as Gelpke (1966: 44) puts it, “… there is probably no other drug that offers peace in such an elementary and unconditional way as does opium.”

Notwithstanding, opium has also led to numerous wars and been the cause of ruthless eradication programmes. Opium was consumed in elegant salons but also smoked in run-down opium dens. It was associated with economic empires and powers politics but was also a rich source of literary inspiration and many other cultural achievements. The exhibition and the 8

accompanying publication follow up the many facets of opium: “Bahram lay back, revelling in the supreme contentment that only opium could confer: that marvellous god-like lightness in which the body and the spirit were freed from gravity, of all kinds” (Ghosh 2011: 538).

Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to the many people and institutions involved in the exhibition project “Opium”.

First of all I would like to thank our visiting curator Dr Doris Buddenberg for the tremendous effort she has put into the project, for her determination and her passionate enthusiasm for the subject. Based on her long and intensive professional experience with narcotics, in general, and opium, in particular, she commands extensive knowledge of the subject from which we had to select a set of topics and aspects. This was not always an easy task but one that Doris Buddenberg readily accepted and mastered brilliantly together with the team of the Museum der Kulturen Basel. I am deeply grateful to all those involved for their great effort in making this project a success.

My sincere thanks also go to all the cooperative partners and lenders who generously supple­ mented our own collection with numerous and significant loan pieces. In particular this refers to the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, the Asian American Comparative Collection (AACC) of the University of Idaho, USA, the Musée International de la Parfumerie Grasse, France, the Museum für Sepulkralkultur in Kassel, and the Pharmazie-Historisches Museum der Universität Basel. We highly appreciate their willingness to lend us their precious objects and the ease with which they handled our loan requests, and would like to thank them for their cooperation and the trust they have put in our museum.

I am also very grateful to the authors of the contributions to this volume and the copyeditor Doris Tranter for her valuable assistance in the making of this book.

Last but not least, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the Freiwilliger Museums­ verein Basel and its chairman as well as to the members of its Kommission for the generous financial support from the Heidi Keller-Fonds. It is only through their help that the exhibition and the accompanying publication in two languages could be brought to fruition.

The exhibition and the publication trace the rich history of opium, the fascination it held for countless people, its impact on different cultures, and the explanations offered for all these facets. Explanations inevitably give rise to interpretations. In this regard we follow Jean Cocteau (1930): “Admittedly, here the state prosecutor steps in. I do not stand as witness. I defend nothing, nor do I judge. I merely contribute exonerating and incriminating evidence to the trial on opium.”

9

THE OPIUM PHENOMENON – AN INTRODUCTION Doris Buddenberg & Anna Schmid

What is opium? To start with, it is a raw material extracted from a plant, the opium poppy, from which a substance is obtained which is used as a medicine or as a narcotic. Next to that, it is a commodity, a consumer good and an intoxicant, but it also stands as a cipher for ideas and experiences and the pleasures and pains that come with them.

The opium phenomenon There are different ways of consuming opium: one can drink, eat or smoke it. In order to give the reader an idea of what this book is all about, we shall briefly sketch what Steven Martin (this volume) has called the opium ritual as well as the effects of opium and the state of mind it conjures up. Opium users as well as outside observers have described the most significant aspects many a time, some in great detail, others in a more cursory manner. The list of opium users includes famous poets and writers such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Baudelaire but also many unknown ­Chinese contract labourers who came to the USA in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as seamen and colonial officers. Let us picture a typical scene: A host invites a group of friends for a quiet round of opium smoking. A special room is furnished with futons, cushions and mattresses, ready for the smokers. The guests wear casual clothing such as open shirts and loose-fitting trousers. The temperature in the room is pleasant, the overall setting emanates an atmosphere of warmth and comfort. Heavy curtains keep out the light, so the room is in semi-darkness. The friends gather in a circle or semi-circle.

Each smoker has a tray containing a complete set of “smoking” utensils: a metal or ceramic vessel with a tight lid containing the opium. A pipe with several bowls, required because the bowls tend to clog up quickly and need to be cleaned and put aside to cool off. The opium is worked into the shape of a small, cone-shaped pill with the help of a roller. Next to the pipe is the needle on to which the pill is skewered and then placed on the small opening of the pipe-bowl. In addition there are cleaning utensils such as a special scraper used for removing residues from the bowl. An opium lamp is placed in the middle. One of the friends remarks: “The utensils unite the five Chinese elements: the wood of the pipe stem; the earth, or clay, of the pipe-bowl; the metal of the needle and the pipe’s saddle; the fire of the opium lamp; and water in the vapour and the tea.” A pot of tea and cups stand ready because the opium tends to dry out the mouth.

Preparing the opium pill and fitting it to the bowl’s opening is tricky and requires some experience. The task is usually performed by a veteran smoker or a skilled servant who tends to the guests and keeps them supplied with tea.

The next step is the lighting-up. The cone-shaped pill on the tip of the needle is placed on the bowl’s opening after which the needle is carefully extracted, leaving a small hole for inhaling. Then the smoker holds the pill over the opium lamp’s funnel-shaped chimney. The opium pipe is designed to vaporize opium, not burn it. One pill lasts for a few short or one big “puff”. The best position for lighting up is to lie sideways. Whenever required, the smoker is handed a new pipe, ready for use.

After the first round of smoking, the conversation begins to flow. The atmosphere is relaxed, talking comes naturally, the range of topics is wide and varied, a sense of ease spreads through 10

the room accompanied by an optimistic, peaceful mood and an almost childlike pleasure in observing the surroundings, taking in even the slightest change. The smoker, usually a man, lies back, resting his head on the pillow, listens, joins in the conversation, then lays back again. His hearing is acute; voices are kept down, if music is played then only very softly.

After the next round of smoking, conversation slows down, becomes halting and foggy, while the opium begins to take effect. The smoker gradually drifts off into his private world of thoughts and ideas, gently, quietly and at peace with himself and the world. Rudolf Gelpke (1966: 41f) writes that, “opium carries you off and awakens you, at the same time. It bears the smoker away from the troubles, fears, conflicts and tensions that daily life brings upon us. But he does not forget or suppress his concerns. Opium clears the mind. All the things I normally think of – my life and my being – are ever present, often more lucid than ever.”

The enjoyment of opium includes memories that reach far back in time; changes to the perception of time – a short moment may feel like hours, or vice versa; the slowing down of movement; and, last but not least, and often referred to, sensory acuity and clear-headedness. The world of thoughts is too interesting, too alive, to want to fall asleep.

But then, at some point, fatigue sets in – after a long night of smoking, of hours of sheltered semi-darkness and engaging thoughts, climax passes over into saturation. Saying farewell is a quiet moment, with no regrets and no big gestures.

The above description refers to the relaxed, cultivated way of consuming opium, not to the style of the desperate addict; to the smoking among friends, not to the consumption in seedy opium dens where each pipe has to be bought. Although the settings and circumstances of opium smoking vary, the description permits us to generalize, for example, with regard to the experiences witnessed under the drug’s influence. This is confirmed, for instance, by Yangwen’s (2005: 84) analysis of opium habits in China or the accounts of the Pakistani Sufi folk singer Pathanay Khan who was addicted to opium (Buddenberg 1983).

The facets of opium In the following, we deal with the issue of opium on three different levels: on the political and economic level, in the social and cultural context, and from the perspective of the individual. The individual level focuses on the experience of opium intake and the drug’s powers as a source of inspiration. The social and cultural dimension deals with public accep­ tance, propaganda, the pros and cons of opium consumption and the achievements of famous opium users. The political and economic level relates to the commodification of opium, the growth and expansion of the opium market as well as the development of international drug control and legislation.

Economic and political level As the chronology at the beginning of the volume shows, opium was already being traded in the Mediterranean area by the second millennium BC, although the sources make no specific reference to quality or quantity. The commercialization of opium began seriously in the 16 th century in India and was, ever after, closely linked with the history and politics of ­European – in particular of Portuguese, Dutch and British – trading companies and colonial powers. Alfred McCoy in his contribution provides a fascinating account of how opium developed from a luxury article and medicine to a global commodity, and what role the e­ ntangled matrix involving various powerful economic and political agents played over the course of roughly four centuries. He shows how two successive policy regimes, free trade and prohibition, helped the key players to attain their goals. A good example to show how, for instance, 11

Great Britain was able to have its way is the final report of the Royal Commission on Opium of 1895 set up by the British parliament to ascertain whether poppy cultivation and the production of opium should be banned on the strength of the substance’s alleged negative effects.

The report concluded that opium was not the cause of either physical or moral degeneration, and, moreover, that Asians came to no harm by consuming opium. It went on to claim that China’s complaints were economically motivated and not medically indicated. Hence the Commission decided not to prohibit poppy cultivation and the opium trade.

The setting up of the Commission in 1893 was a reaction to growing public protest – above all from religious pressure groups – attacking the opium trade and consumption. Jakob ­Tanner examines the emergence of the anti-opium movement in the USA and Europe towards the end of the 19 th century and the development of international drug control in the 20 th century. He shows the impact of power politics on the way single countries approached the drug issue and what measures were taken nationally and, later, internationally. The development of drug legislation and control and the banning of narcotics were effectively undermined by the lucrative profits lurking in the growing twilight economy and on the black market. Tanner pleads for an end to repressive policies. He proposes that governments should face up to the fact that illegal drugs are omnipresent, that the distinction between legal and illegal drugs is completely arbitrary and that it would be better for the authorities to frame a drug policy that is aligned to the needs of the drug users. In his contribution, Michael ­Kessler follows the history of opium from the perspective of medicine, chemistry and pharmaceutics, picking up on the view of the physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, a friend of Goethe, that “the history of opium is also the history of medicine”. He assigns the major turning point in opium therapy to the beginning of the 19 th century when opium alkaloids were first discovered, leading to major changes in medical practice. The fact that the alkaloids could be measured out exactly meant that they could now be effectively used in pharmacological therapy. Kessler traces the development to the present day – opium itself no longer plays a part in modern medicine unlike some of its ingredients such as morphine. It is followed by Barbara Remberg and Kalman Szendrei’s contribution, which provides an overview of the development of opioid research, the search for opioid receptors and the impact the discovery had. Barbara Remberg’s additional input on the olfactory properties of opium and the analysis of odours elucidates further dimensions. For example, analysis has shown that of the 100 components that can be detected instrumentally, only fifteen are responsible for the typical opium odour.

The social and cultural dimension Drug control and the legal agencies responsible for its implementation play a major role in how the general public views substances such as opium. The law draws the line between legal and illegal, hence it also defines who conforms to the common societal norm and who – putting it rather crudely – has become a burden to society. This, in turn, provides a framework for the images a society creates of the drug consumers in its midst – of the junkie at the margin of society but also of the celebrity in the limelight. This is also an aspect Jakob Tanner deals with in his article. In her contribution “Temptation and Deterrence”, Doris Buddenberg looks at yet another feature when she compares the advertising for Yves Saint Laurent’s perfume Opium with the posters of the anti-opium campaigns in various South and Southeast Asian countries, revealing the full range between the socially desirable and the despicable dimensions of opium.

12

The ritual of opium smoking described above may involve the use of up to twenty different utensils; illustrating the sophistication of the material culture which developed around ­opium. Stephen Martin describes in detail the three key instruments used in the course of smoking: the needle, the lamp and the pipe. On the one hand, he examines the instruments from the perspective of practicability, on the other, he highlights developments in terms of materiality – the opium pipe as we know it, for example, is a fairly recent invention – and he specifies how the various items became ever more differentiated in terms of design and decoration. Finally, he contrasts this differentiation with the social practice of opium s­ moking: on the one hand, the inventive design and the artistic decoration, on the other, the intense experience of intoxication.

Narrative traditions and various literary genres including myths, poetry and prose provide access to the subject of opium from different perspectives. The opium poppy and its transformation into a substance that induces entranced experiences is a recurrent motif in the myths of origin of diverse cultures. Doris Buddenberg identifies these myths as a form of worldview in which knowledge about the world and the things it contains are assigned a specific order. Notably, it is always a woman who bestows opium on humanity, but at a price: the pleasure it brings always entails suffering.

Appeal, appropriation and contradiction are three themes that Barry Milligan also addresses in his contribution in which he describes the identification of the “Orient” with otherness and the “stranger within us” in nineteenth-century Great Britain. Adding the ingredient ­opium to the Orient – according to Milligan an almost natural chain of thought in those days – resulted in a complex and highly ambiguous mix in which historical events including the triangular trade – opium from India to China; luxury goods such as tea, silk and spices from China to England; and textiles from England to India – nurtured “typically Oriental” associations. Milligan reveals these entanglements by taking a closer look at diverse literary works of the 19 th century, including pieces by writers such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, Charlotte Brontë and the popular mystery author Wilkie Collins.

Doris Buddenberg reviews the poem “The Wakeful Night” by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and highlights signs of opiated sentiment and thought. Based on a meticulous verse-to-verse analysis and a comparison with other poems, Buddenberg concludes that Droste-Hülshoff probably gathered inspiration under the influence of opium, although it remains open ­whether the poet consciously reverted to opium as an inspirational aid.

In her next article, Doris Buddenberg examines typical perceptions, sentiments, distortions and intensifications under the influence of opium with the aid of three categories found, occasionally even openly addressed, in poetry and prose. The first category is time: in an opium reverie, time attains new qualities which Buddenberg distils from works by Jean Cocteau, Ernst Jünger and Thomas De Quincey into deceleration, standstill and simultaneity. The second category is space, real as well as imaginary. Buddenberg concludes that the spatialized artificial worlds encountered in poems and confessional literature reflect thought processes induced by opium, rendering them visible and comprehensible. The third c­ ategory refers to colour. Writers often associated opium with distinct colours when describing the drug’s effects, or used them as metaphors. Although colour perceptions, interpretations and significations are modified by cultural and subjective circumstances, as Buddenberg freely admits, the statements made by many writers go to show that, under opium, specific colours are often loaded with either clearly positive connotations or their opposite; others retain a more ambivalent character. Buddenberg sees in this threefold division a first indication of an opium-specific colour code – an opiated colour wheel, so to speak. By correlating the 13

three categories – time, space and colour –, she suggests that opium literature is informed by an underlying schema inasmuch as two of the three categories are emphasized throughout the works, in changing composition. However, this finding would require validation by crosschecking with literary oeuvres not associated with opium.

The individual experience Most of the contributions refer to individual experiences witnessed under the influence of opium, specifically qualities such as calm, peace of mind, lucidity, but also the feeling of bursting energy. With regard to time, space and colour, Doris Buddenberg sees the statements made by different people condensing into a common pattern. Notwithstanding, individual experience is always informed by the prevailing ambience and the conventions that underlie it. Thus, notably Gelpke points out that the “art of opium smoking in the Orient” is best done in company because if “the smoker is alone there is the danger that demons will keep him company” (Gelpke 1966: 55). For men like Thomas De Quincey and Edgar Allen Poe, however, loneliness was part of their opium indulgence. This probably has to do with the fact that the elaborate ritual of opium smoking usually required the company of others, while drinking laudanum – as in the case of De Quincey – was a solitary affair. This disparity implies a differing appraisal of the consumption practices and, derived therefrom, divergent contextualizations of the habit of opium indulgence, as Gelpke (ibid.) suggests. Thus it appears that the social context may have an influence – even a strong influence – on the way people experience opium intoxication.

Steven Martin summarizes what unbridled opium smoking may lead to in a sombre conclusion: “While lying with the pipe poised over the lamp, the smoker’s focus was concentrated on his or her paraphernalia, as no doubt were intense feelings of both the passion and shame of what, for some, became a ruinous addiction.” Finding the right or at least a suitable path and coming to terms with this inner conflict is an issue all opium literati seem to have struggled with: in word and image, they describe in detail their quandaries, their being torn between fascination and seduction, and resistance, fear and horror.

The publication opens with a chronology, which not only lists facts and figures but also includes quotations from different eras referring to experiences with and under opium. The book concludes with an essay by Friederike Kretzen which ends as follows: “Opium is a drug of pain. It does not overcome pain but allows us to descend into it, into this dark and rough terrain within us, the heart of darkness in which another light never stops shining – that of the waking of the forces of a different memory.”

The rich material compiled in this volume, the analyses and the reflections on the subject reveal that opium has always been both an elixir of life and a curse. On the one side stand global powers, the world of science and erudite literary circles, on the other, Asian peasant farmers, criminal syndicates and so-called rogue states, with the opiate users on either side, but usually in between. However, this line-up in no way suggests unambiguity. The story of opium is a narrative of entanglement, with no clear boundaries between any of the sides.

14

Image p. 16 / 17 > The ripeness of the capsule is often tested by breaking off part of the stigmata. If white sap oozes out, the capsule is ready for lancing and the raw opium can be harvested.

Stigmata of the poppy capsule. Dir District, Pakistan, 1991. © Doris Buddenberg; photographer: Sajid Munir Image p. 18 / 19 > Each capsule has to be lanced.

Beginning of the harvest. Dir District, Pakistan, 1991. © Doris Buddenberg; photographer: Sajid Munir Image p. 20 > The poppy sap, the tears of the poppy, will at first be left on the capsule to thicken.

Under the influence of light, the sap turns brown.

Dir District, Pakistan, 1991. © Doris Buddenberg; photographer: Sajid Munir Image p. 22 / 23 > The moist, sticky mass of raw opium is scraped off the capsule and will then be transferred to larger containers.

Raw opium in collecting scoops. Dir District, Pakistan, 1991. © Doris Buddenberg; photographer: Sajid Munir

15

FROM THE POPPY PLANT TO RAW OPIUM Doris Buddenberg

The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is an annual plant growing up to 1.5 metres tall.

Its typical characteristics are the sturdy taproots; an unbranched stem; serrated, greenish-blue leaves up to 15 centimetres in length; blossoms with four petals in various colours; and the large seed pod.

The agricultural calendar changes depending on the climate and altitude with growing times of four to six months. In central Afghanistan, the seeds are sown in late autumn (October – November) and the opium harvested in April and May. In Laos, on the other hand, harvesting takes place in February and March. In Badakhshan, in northeastern Afghanistan, the opium poppy is a summer plant, sown in March and April and harvested in August and September, as it is in Europe.

The opium poppy blooms only for a few weeks; the splendour of the striking, almost garish blossoms in white, red, pink and violet is brief before the petals are cast off and the pod ripens.

The round pods contain the seeds, which, according to the species, can be white, grey, bluish or brownish-black. A pod can contain up to 2,000 seeds. This is said to be the reason why, since antiquity, the poppy has also been a symbol of fertility. It is associated with the goddesses who are responsible for the fruitfulness of the earth, crops, seeds and the seasons.

In the pod, and also in other parts of the plant, a white milky latex contains the opium. The pod contains the most latex shortly before the blossoms fade. Raw opium is obtained by scratching the pods and letting the ‘tears’ of latex seep out and dry. This sap is called opos or opion in Greek, which gives opium its name. The Greeks also called the plant mekon, from which the German Mohn is derived.

The ripeness of the pod can be seen, firstly, in the fine, transparent white veil that covers it, and, secondly, by the fact that it does not yield as much when pressed. Its maturity can also be determined if latex seeps out when a prong of the stigmata of the pod is broken off. The bleeding begins once the plants are ripe. Either special short, sharp knives, two or three flat blades tied together or a wooden handle with pieces of razor blades inserted are used. The harvesting tools must be easy to make, easy to transport and replaceable whenever and wherever required. In Afghanistan, a small wooden handle with pieces of razor blades has become prevalent: it is inexpensive and easy for the harvest hands to replace. In Southeast Asia, a metal scratching tool with two to three blades is common.

For the harvesting of opium, each pod will be scratched once a day for three or four days.

The direction of the scratch varies according to region. In Afghanistan, the knife is drawn from the top to the bottom of the pod with light pressure: alternatively, the pod can also be scratched from the bottom to the top or along the circumference, as in Laos and Vietnam.

The milky-white latex then seeps out. The water contained in the latex evaporates slowly, so that the sap dries, becomes thicker and takes on a pink colour. Light further thickens the sap, and it turns brown. This raw opium is then scraped off with a scoop either the following morning or evening. The scoop is rounded on one side so that it can be drawn around the curve of the pod. As harvesting is labour-intensive, the manpower of a family is rarely sufficient to harvest the crop. In Afghanistan, therefore, up to 300,000 migrant workers follow the ripening of the poppy plant.

21

FROM THE FIRST CRUMBS OF OPIUM TO CONTEMPORARY POPPY CULTIVATION: A CHRONOLOGY Doris Buddenberg

c.6000 BC

c.3000 BC c.2700 BC c.1800 BC 1600 – 1200 BC

1500 BC

c.1500 BC

c.1300 BC c.1300 BC

c.1200 BC

c.770 – c.700 BC

c.600 BC 460 – 377 BC c.330 BC

24

Evidence of opium poppy as an agricultural crop in southern Europe.

The earliest form of the 700 species of the poppy plant probably grew in Spain and Italy. The oldest poppy seed found to date is about 7,000 years old and was found near Cologne.

Poppy seeds are found near lake-dwelling settlements on the Lake of Constance.

Opium used for healing and recreation is first mentioned in Sumerian cuneiform writing; it is called plant of joy (hul gil).

Opium is stored in special vessels, called bilbil jugs; it is initially imported from Cyprus, and then cultivated in the Nile Valley.

Archaeological finds indicate that the opium poppy spreads via trade routes from Switzerland along the Rhine to northern Europe and to the eastern Mediterranean.

Evidence of poppy cultivation and trade in opium in the M ­ editerranean.

Cyprus is the hub of the ancient opium trade. Bulbous bilbil jugs are used for transport.

In the Ebers Papyrus, the oldest Egyptian book of medicine, opium is described as a medication against infantile colic and as an anaesthetic: “Juice from the pod is used to stimulate men in war and in love and to give them exciting dreams.”

A late-Minoan terracotta figure from the sanctuary of Gazi shows a woman with upraised arms and three poppy pods on her head.

Poppy cultivation in Egypt: for example, in Thebes (Thebaicum) from the Eighteenth Dynasty under the reigns of Akhenaten (c.1351 – 1334 BC), Thutmose IV (1397 – 1388) and Tutankhamun (1332 – 1323). Exported primarily to Greece and Carthage.

Cult of Demeter in Mycenae, site of the ritual revolving around Deme­ ter and Kore (or Persephone). As goddesses of fruitfulness, they are mostly depicted with stalks of grain and poppy flowers.

First literary reference to opium in Homer’s epics The Odyssey and The Iliad: Nepenthe, the drug of forgetfulness, probably contains opium: “[…] as a garden poppy in full bloom when it is weighed down by showers in spring — even thus heavy bowed his head beneath the weight of his helmet” (Butler, 1898).

Demeter shrine in Eleusis, near Athens, site of the Eleusinian mysteries, initiations and votive rituals.

Hippocrates writes about the medicinal use of opium.

The claim that Alexander the Great introduced opium to Persia and India cannot be verified.

1 st century AD

The Roman physicians Dioscorides and Gaius Plinius Secundus the Elder describe the use of opium as a medicine and aphrodisiac as well as the medicines theriac and mithridate, in which honey, spices, minerals, fat, et cetera, are mixed with opium.

1 st – 2 nd centuries The Roman emperors Nero, Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius are regular consumers of opium.

2 nd century Pausanias (115 – 180) reports on the Demeter shrine in Patras, Greece, as a site of oracles and as a place to honour Demeter. c.129 – 201 AD Galen of Pergamon, also known as the personal physician of Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus, praises opium as a useful medicine; first description of a fatal overdose.

3rd century The philosopher Plotinus (205 – 270) takes opium and analyses his changed spatial and temporal perceptions in his writings: “It is we who must create time.” “What is distant is near.”

214 Seventeen metric tons of opium are counted at an inventory of the imperial palace in Rome.

4 th century Opium as a pain-relieving medicine is banned in Europe.

4 th century onwards The opium poppy disappears from the Occident.

810 Charlemagne bans the juice of the opium poppy, describing it as the work of the devil; those who touch it are to be condemned as magicians and poisoners. The coming Inquisition invokes this legislation. c.840 Walahfrid von der Reichenau, called Strabo, writes Liber de cultura hortorum; the twenty-four medicinal plants that he describes in verse form include papaver.

10 th century In his work The Canon of Medicine, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980 – 1037) designates opium as “succus papaveris nigri Ägyptiaci in sole siccatus”: sun-dried poppy juice from black Egypt.

1037 – 1101 The poet, painter, calligrapher and politician of the Song Dynasty (976 – 1279), Su Shi, also known as Su Dongpo, spends years in both voluntary or forced exile. The Ode to the Poppy comes from this time of exile: “For three years my door has remained closed / I was nowhere and I did not come back from anywhere / In dreams I see the hermits in the shade and the Buddhist priests with their long robes, and when they sit close to me, I happily forget to speak / Drinking a cup of poppy tea, I laugh, I am content / Without leaving my seat I go to the city YungChuen and I wander along the banks of the river, it also seems to me as if I climb the sides of Lu mountain, though it is quite far from my house, in the west, and I am happy” (Pluchon 1887).

From c.1100 on Cultivation of the opium poppy in China, above all for medicinal purposes.

1119 – 1220 Attar, Farid ud-Din, apothecary, perfume maker, physician and poet.

In his Diwan, a collection of poems, he refers to theriac, a traditional medicine that usually contained opium.

Image p. 26 / 27 > Tobacco and opium smokers in China, photograph; before 1889; 20×26 cm; inv.-no. (F)IId 2895; Coll. Georges Passavant

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