Our nation is currently in the midst of a crisis, the ever-increasing number of individuals across America who are using drugs classed as synthetic opioids.
In 2023, it was estimated that more than 1,500 Americans died per week from some kind of overdose; between the years 2000 and 2024, the majority of drug overdose deaths were due to synthetic opioids. This is not only an enormous health crisis; it is also a major foreign policy issue since much of the supply of synthetic opioids comes from China or Mexico.[1]
This is a crisis that I have written about often, as it is of great professional concern to me as an addictions therapist. However, it is also of great personal concern to me as an American citizen and caring human being. Many families and communities have been devastated by the rapid, intense, and life-altering effects of synthetic opioids such as codeine, oxycodone, and fentanyl, with individuals losing parents, children, friends, partners, and neighbors to these drugs. Things cannot go on as they are.
One way we can all work towards ending this crisis is to educate ourselves about it. While many of us know the effects of fentanyl and other opioids, it is also necessary to understand what got us to the point of crisis in order to move towards a solution. So how did we get here? What is the history behind the current devastating crisis? This two-part series will take a detailed look at the long history of opioids and explore how we arrived where we are today in America.
Natural Opioids
The first critical thing to understand about the history of opioid use is that there is a major difference between natural and synthetic opioids. Long before the spread of fentanyl and oxycodone in America, natural opioids caused a fair amount of concern and conflict worldwide due to their addictive properties as recreational drugs. Below is a brief history of natural opioids.
The Medicinal Poppy Plant
Opioids in one natural form or another have likely been used since before the start of recorded history. This is because opioids are naturally derived from the papaver somniferum, which is more commonly known as the opium or breadseed poppy. These are a specific strain of the common, colorful flowers familiar to us from gardens around the world; a version of the poppy might even be growing in your backyard now! But while the opium poppy looks beautiful and bright like other poppies, its seeds contain a powerful chemical compound that, when released using the correct method, can induce a particular sleepy, dreamlike state of unconsciousness in humans. There is a hint toward this in the formal name for the poppy: in Latin, the word somniferum means inducing sleep.[2]
For this reason, natural derivatives from the poppy plant have been used throughout history – mostly sparingly – by medical professionals to manage pain from illness and surgery as well as to induce sleep. In fact, we believe that the ancient Greeks named the sap which emerged from the pod at the center of the flower opion, from which our current word opium derives. There are recorded uses of opium across the Mediterranean and west of the Rhine River as early as 3400 BCE; a tablet found from the Sumerian peoples described the collection of poppy juice and how it was made into opium.[3] As colonization began, it was one of the main commodities to be shipped across Qing China, the Colonial Americas, and the Indian subcontinent.[4]
The Opium Wars
However, opioids have also been used recreationally and illegally as drugs in many countries around the world. There exist countless accounts of opioid use in popular literature, dating back as far as the 16th century and enjoying something of a trend in the 19th century. French composer Hector Berlioz composed his Symphonie Fantastique around the story of a young artist who overdoses on opium and has visions of love. In Oscar Wilde’s famous book, The Portrait of Dorian Grey, the wealthy and vain English protagonist, Grey finds himself going to seedy opium dens in search of relief from his guilt and shame.[5]
Given the way the opioid crisis is currently understood in modern life, many might be surprised to learn that China was actually the first country to ban opium completely. In 1799, the emperor banned its production and sale outright after increasing demand from English and American traders began to wreak havoc on Chinese society. At this time, by contrast, England and America understood opium – in the form of hashish paste, laudanum, or liquid morphine – to be a highly useful medicine and relaxant. Records show that “any respectable person” could purchase such drugs freely and for their own purposes in English-speaking societies at the time.[6]
Unfortunately, the Chinese ban did not stop the production of opium but merely started an illegal process of opium manufacture and trade within and around China. This resulted in a series of international conflicts, including not one but two Opium Wars between Queen Victoria and the Chinese emperor. [7] These two wars, which took place between 1840 and 1860, represented the height of the natural opium crisis globally.
After the end of the Second Opium War, China was defeated and made to regulate (rather than outright ban) opium production for sale to England, America, and beyond. At that time, the effect and function of these plants – which were powerful enough to cause two international wars – became the point of medical interest and curiosity among Western practitioners and scientists who began to experiment more widely with the drug. This would eventually lead to the development of synthetic opioids and its devastating effects on American society.
In part two of this series, I will explore the research that led to this development and the corporate irresponsibility which resulted in synthetic opioids being unnecessarily pushed on the American population.
If you or someone you know is struggling with opioid use, reach out to us at Heather R. Hayes and Associates or visit the resources section of this website. We are here to help.
Sources:
[1] Klobucista and Ferragamo, (2023). Fentanyl and the U.S. Opioid Epidemic. Council on Foreign Relations. Dec 22. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/fentanyl-and-us-opioid-epidemic
[2] Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2024, December 5). poppy. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/plant/poppy
[3] Paul L. Schiff Jr. (2002). “Opium and its alkaloids”. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education. Archived from the original on October 21, 2007. Retrieved May 8, 2007.
[4] Salavert A, Zazzo A, Martin L, Antolín F, Gauthier C, Thil F, Tombret O, Bouby L, Manen C, Mineo M, Mueller-Bieniek A (20 November 2020). “Direct dating reveals the early history of opium poppy in western Europe”. Scientific Reports. 10 (1): 20263.
[5] Milligan, B. (1995). Pleasures and pains: Opium and the Orient in nineteenth-century British culture. Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia. http://archive.org/details/pleasurespainsop0000mill
[6] Dikotter F (2004). Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China. Hurst. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-226-14905-9.
[7] Dr Roland Quinault, Dr Ruth Clayton Windscheffel, Mr Roger Swift (July 28, 2013). William Gladstone: New Studies and Perspectives. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 238–. ISBN 978-1-4094-8327-4.
