Social Causes Fridays
"Tens of millions use them in crude form or in concentrated products such as heroin, hashish, and cocaine. These are what most people think of when they hear the word 'drugs'."
3 Talking Points: 1 Opium 2 Cannabis 3 Coca
Segment One: Origins of opium poppy from all over- Europe-China. Around 1600 BC Neolithic people in Swiss Foreland. Opium means Poppy Juice in Greek.
-Value found in nutritious seeds, oils medicinal, and psychoactive effects spread through Greece Crete Egypt etc.
-Suited to treat anxiety boredom diarrheal disease etc
-Roman Emporer Marcus Aurelius used opium to, sleep, cope, and historians speculate, Pg 32 "wall himself off emotionally from the world he famously despised."
-Promoninent in Arab medicine traders took opium to Iran India China and became popular in East due to Islam favoring Opium over alcohol. Medically Imperative for victims of diarreal complications, and malaria fevers endemic to warm damp areas.
-Sir William Moore-British physician studied to see why widespread of opium use in East. -Not racist, he observed in hot climates/tropics opium Pg 33 "eliminate distress, to relieve body from effects of scorching heat, deeper sleep..."
-Chinese opium smoking offshoot of tobacco and in 1760 discovered process to smoke pure opium. By 1900s made common to peasamts.
-Warren Delano II-Grandfather to FDR and Lead of Russsell & Company quoted, Pg. 34 "...as a merchant I insist that it has been a fair, honerable and legitimate trade..." In Chinese eyes-men like him seen as enemy.
-Imports of opium into China patently illegal since 1729 by imperial edict - Force used against China in first opium war (1839-1842) when attempted to supress traffic
-Second Anglo-Chinese War (1856-1858) resulted in legalization of Indian Opium Trade
-1848-1888 population pressure pushed migration -2 million Chinese left to Indochina, Sumatra, Phillipines, California, Australia, taking opium. - Pg34 "Lonley, oppressed indebted...they sought release in a consetellation of bachelor vices, including gambling, prostitution and opium smoking."
-Talents such as Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, and others utlized and made famous
-Use and Addiction increased rapidly doubled in US 1870-1890. Pg 136, " If it were possible to stop the sale of opiates today, in a week's time there would be raving maniacs and people dropping dead on every corner of towns and cities," complained one journalist.
*Causes of increase due to Civil War in part -"St. Morphine:" Patent medicine hypdermic injection of Morphine- psychoactive alkaloid of opium.
-German pharmacist Friedrich Serturner worked on isolation of morphine.
-Opium was most adulterated mixed with everything VS Morphine pure predictable consequently, greater addiction
-1886 Jules Verne wrote sonnet, "Oh jab me with your fine needle a hundred times/ And a hundred times I will bless you, St. Morphine," being relieved of pain from gunshot wound.
-1926 Poppy Fields grew in Sonora, North Western Mexico
-Pg39 Historian Alfred McCoy cites reasons addicts use and mass heroin addiction:" unemployment, alienation, youth drug culture. '...an exclusive emphasis on addicts motives 'ignores the fundemental fact that heroin is a mass market commodity...' Without global production and distribution, there can be no mass addiction to cocaine or heroin."
Sement Two: Cannabis originated central Asia, extensively cultivated in Cina 6,000 year ago and valuable multiuse crop: drug, cooking oil, edible seeds, animal fodder, hemb fibers for rope, etc.
-Flourished in varying climates-most prized country of India for psychoactive plants
-Bhang: dried cannabis leaves, seeds stems earliest reference 2,000-1400 BC -Ganja: made from dried flowerng tops of cultivated females plants 3x stronger smoked and is ingested. -Charas: pure resin processed from plant
-No one is sure when Cannabis entered Europe but was Controversial there and in Islamic worlds. -Attempts to supress failed with Arabs spreading cannabis down east coast of Africa.
-Spanish cultivated in early 19th century and briefly in California
-Imported Slaves working sugar plantations in Brazil permitted to smoke Pg. 41 "and to smoke and dream during periods of inactivity between harvests."
-Vera Rubin anthropolgist used term "Ganja Complex" or pattern of cannabis use: clothing, spice, energizer, medicine. - In Brazil known as opium for the poor.
-1838 sugar plantation hired indentured workers from India during decline of slavery and encountered ganja complex that came with them
-By 1970 60% Jamaican rural male smoked
-Pg 42 "The folk medicinal use of cannabis teas ... so widespread but even devout Christians did not regard it as a vicious or declasse."
-1916 first report of American troops smoking cannabis by 1932 Panamanian farmers growing and selling surplus to American
-Officers investigated and notated, Pg 42 "The plant is used to make tea. There is among the colored people great faith in the efficacy of the strength as a mild stimulant feeling of well-being and also a preventive of malaria."
-Cannabis smoking in US from Mexican laborers raised commercially for fiber and seed quote page 43 "I'd rather have weed but do me better than whiskey do."
-In Tennessee convict laborers simply dried and smoked flowery tops widespread availability kept price low
*World war II Army psychiatrist studied morale and discipline in 26 year old black service member case study notes page 34..."'you like to look at freaky things you like to go to one of those freaky pads where you can look at the nude bodies ...' -diagnosis drug addict section 8 category for men of unsuitable and unadaptable habits on traits of character "
-Pg 44 " (Cannabis In America) was more geared towards pleasure no medicinal teas or folk remedies, just smoking to get high," or the ganja complex "intensification of individuality" Bauderlaue notates.
-Media exposure sparked interest in youth, with displeasure with segregation, materialism, Vietnam war, made convenient rebellion. - By 1979 worldwide in all countries. Young cannabis uses more likely to experiment with other drugs, ex: LSD cocaine heroin
-Eric Hoffer observed page 45 "aspiring leaders cannot create mass movements unless conditions are historically ripe." - demographic birth rates increase after war, boost from TV and media. One ad "You only go around once in life so you have to grab all the gusto you can." More youth seen as once around consumers lived disenchanted and world of self gratification more prone to view cannabis as another option.
Cannabis traveled to Micronesia, Fiji, Samoa, Tongo and other Pacific Islanders by Peace corps and youth despite official restrictions - Pg 46"travel and transportation are crucial variables and drug history just as they are in the history of infectious diseases. "
Segment Three: Coca & Cocaine - Fact: shortcoming of technology and transportation delayed globalization of coca psychoactive alkaloid of cocaine
-3,000 BC archaeological evidence of earliest used Eastern Andes sampled leaves discovering their properties
-Pg 46 "Alcohol makes you feel good but coca puts strength in your bones."
-16th century Spanish debated toleration or suppression. Toleration prevailed due to practicality sustained labor and silver mines
-1860s graduate student Albert Niemann described isolation of cocaine in 1862. Merck pioneered morphine production-Corsican pharmacist Angelo Mariani patented coca extract in Bordeaux wine -Ad campaign geared towards youth health and celebrity-by 1884 international success tonic and expand it into other coca productselped Ulysses Grant complete memoirs. Mariani's inspired imitations Coca-Cola.
-Sigmund Freud 1884 paper "Uber Coca" gave great review and hinted at cocaine's use as a local anesthetic
- Carl Koller received fame 1884 by showing cocaine's ability to numb cornea- Discovery was godsend and then used as a spinal block- therapeutic interest pushed demand.
-Park Davis leading American manufacturer dispatched Henry Rusby to Bolivia began to extract crude alkaloid in Ande's as opposed to bringing leaves
-Coca grown from Nigeria to Ceylon
-Dutch had small scale in 1880s until efficient extraction by single German firm patent
-Cheap cocaine fed worldwide epidemic from 1890s to 1920s - United States and India cases of poisoning and addiction by patients and doctors just another option to opium ganja alcohol etc
-From sharp increase to cocaine abuse to restrictions pushed in Canada and Europe after 1905 due to Big City low life and nightlife Montreal pick pockets and Montmartre prostitutes -Pg 51 "they give all that they possess even indispensable articles of clothing in order to indulge in their mad cravings."
-1920s World exports and epidemic declined - David Musto historian push for first study of cocaine epidemic believes the decline use shows generational learning pattern: new drug generates enthusiasm, use rises, to problems, to overdose, paranoia in most users, discouraged would be users, then use declines. "It is as if harsh experience immunizes a generation. The catch is that when this generation passes its immunity passes with it... 1970s baby boomers had no living memory of downside..."
- Puzzle is why some drugs popular and certain places and not in others.
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