Someone coined the phrase "the only constant is change."  It’s a good one, applicable almost across the board.  But someone else coined the corollary phrase "some things never change."  Also a good one, and one I’ve chosen to describe opium use.  Because the first known written reference; by the Sumerians of southwest Asia around 6,000 years ago, describes the poppy flower, whose gummy extract is opium, as hul gil – plant of joy.  Like I said, some things never change.

From the time of those ancient Sumerians forward, opium use has continued a part of recorded history.  Sculpture of the Roman god of sleep, Somnos, was adorned with poppies – placing the origins of "flower power" well before the 60s.  Poppies can be found in Egyptian pictography, illustrating their priests/physicians as using an opium remedy call "thebacium" (named after potent poppies grown near their capital city of Thebes).  Dug-up dead Pharoahs were found with opium artifacts within reach, just in case the afterlife got a little boring.

Homer wrote about opium in The Odyssey, speaking of Telemachus and his grief over not finding his father, Odysseus.  Helen slipped the depressed Telemachus a cocktail of wine and opium, describer by Homer as a potion "that had the power of robbing grief and anger of their sting and banishing all painful memories."  And had more professors highlighted that aspect of The Odyssey, fewer college students would have taken the Cliff’s Notes shortcut.

Ancient Greek physicians, most notably Galen, would grind the whole poppy plant or use its opium extract to remedy nearly every known malady from persistent headaches and melancholy to "the trouble to which women are subject."  Galen may have been the earliest snake oil salesman (a little opium for your PMS, my dear?), but later physicians were no less enthusiastic.  Opium was variously referred to as the Sacred Anchor of Life, Milk of Paradise, Destroyer of Grief – and the Hand of God.

That invocation of God’s purpose for the poppy was heralded in the 14th century by a fellow named Paracelsus, a German-Swiss doctor, who wrote, "I possess a secret remedy which I call laudanum [literally, "something to be praised"] and which is superior to all other heroic remedies."  Then the physician Thomas Sydenham, a 17th  century maven of English medicine, proclaimed that "among the remedies which has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium."

Opium enjoyed its exalted status for more than 5,000 years, mostly as a medicine but also as social recreation, reinforcing the notion that the line between pleasure and pain is a fine one indeed.  It was physician Sydenham that standardized Paracelsus’ laudanum brew, taking two ounces of opium, and ounce of saffron with a pinch of cinnamon and cloves, all shaken and probably stirred inside a pint of cheap wine.  Bingo, laudanum was a hit.  British imports of opium skyrocketed to around 300,000 pounds by 1860.

The British Empire, through The British East India Company, wielded a monopoly over India’s opium production and its worldwide distribution, but preferred Turkish opium for her subjects.  Why?  Because Turkish opium was the better buzz, that’s why.  Those kinky Brits…  Anyway, buying laudanum and raw opium in 19th century England was easy and acceptable , available at pharmacies and even grocery stores.