Opium
Pronunciation:OH-pi-uhm
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number:8008-60-4
Formal Names:Papaver album,Papaver somniferum, Poppy
Informal Names:Ah-pen-yen, Aunti, Aunti Emma, Big O, Black, Blackjack, Black
Pill, Black Stuff, Chandoo, Chandu, Chinese, Chinese Molasses, Chinese To-
bacco, Chocolate, Cruz, Dopium, Dover, Dover’s Deck, Dover’s Powder,
Dreamer, Dream Gun, Dreams, Dream Stick, Easing Powder, Emma, Fi-Do-Nie,
Garden-Poppy, Gee, God’s Medicine, Goma, Gondola, Gong, Goric, Great To-
bacco, Gum, Guma, Hard Stuff, Hocus, Hop, Indonesian Bud, Joy, Joy Plant,
Mawseed, Midnight Oil, Mira, Mud, O, Oil, OJ, OP, Ope, Pen Yan, Pen Yen,
PG, Pin Gon, Pin Yen, Plant, PO, Pox, Skee, Tar, Tongs, Tox, Toxy, Toys, When-
Shee, Winshee, Yen Shee Suey, Ze, Zero
Type:Depressant (opiate class).Seepage 22
Federal Schedule Listing:Schedule II (DEA no. 9600)
USA Availability:Prescription
Pregnancy Category:C
Uses.Many opium products are discussed elsewhere in this book, but here
we are dealing with the substance from which all those products originate.
Opium has long been used to relieve pain, fight coughs, cure diarrhea, and
control spasms. Traditionally, opium is dried sap harvested from the seed-
producing portion of opium poppy plants. At harvest time fields of poppies
can have a strong smell, and children in the fields can be overcome by those
airborne chemicals. A modern opium variety is “poppy straw,” composed of
dry or liquid extracts from the plant. The natural product can be used by itself
or can be refined to produce various drugs known as “opiates,” valued for
their medicinal effects.
Archaeologists have found evidence of opium poppy cultivation dating
from 15,000 years ago, but examination of historical records has not proven
that ancient peoples understood opium’s medicinal benefits; the product may
have been used traditionally but without understanding how or even whether
it worked. Opium may have been used in Roman Empire religious ceremonies,
perhaps exploiting the drug’s effects to symbolize a process of death and re-
incarnation, and even older records imply that ancients may have believed