Opium, it so happens, has had mankind on a high as far back as 3,400 B.C. The Mesopotamians cultivated the plant, and called it ‘Hul Gil’ or the Joy Plant. Presumably, they had their share of fun. But the plant is infamous for its debilitating effect on China in the 18th and 19th centuries, when opium dens turned millions of Chinese peasants into unproductive drifters.

Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates first realised there was more to opium than a ‘high’, but it was German chemist Friedrich Sertürner who, in 1804, extracted opium’s active ingredient and called it morphine — after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Physicians then began to prescribe the drug as a pain-killer.

Later that century, on battlefields across the world, millions of soldiers were given morphine to relieve them from the pain of war wounds. When these soldiers traded their battle fatigues for workmen’s overalls, their addiction went with them — a phenomenon called ‘soldier’s disease’ — and slowed down the economy. In 1914, the US enforced the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, to restrict the distribution of narcotic substances. Opiates such as morphine and heroin fell under these restrictions.

Today, although several countries allow the liberal prescription of morphine to alleviate pain, access is still strictly controlled, including in India.

Pierre Mario Fitter