Opium for the Masses : Harvesting Nature's Best Pain Medication

by Hogshire, Jim

• ISBN13: 9781932595468
• ISBN10: 1932595465
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-10-01
• Publisher: Consortium

Summary

Opium for the Masses was such a national phenomenon when first released in the early '90s that Michael Pollan wrote a cover story for Harper's magazine about the book, in which he he expressed his amazement that a common plant, P. somniferum, or the opium poppy, grows wild in most states, and could be made into a drinkable tea that acts in ways similar to codeine or Vicodin.

Author Biography

Jim Hogshire is also the author of the award-winning book Pills-A-Go-Go.

Table of Contents

Romantic Poets and Dope Fiends	p. 9
Opium Addiction: An Honest Disclaimer	p. 14
Who's a Hophead?	p. 17
All Those Famous Addicts	p. 18
The Origins and History of Opium	p. 21
What Opium Feels Like	p. 31
Popular Perceptions of Opium	p. 38
Opium As a Gift of God	p. 40
More Opiated Physical Effects	p. 42
The War on Poppies	p. 47
Just How Important is the Opium Poppy, Anway?	p. 53
The Poppy Rebellion	p. 58
Subversive Nurseries and Florists	p. 62
The Results of the Latest Program	p. 64
Opium Poppy Law	p. 65
The Role of Pain in Freedom	p. 67
Your Very Own Poppy tea (and Laudanum)	p. 71
Making Poppy Tea	p. 77
Poppy Seeds	p. 80
Making Opium from Poppy Tea	p. 83
Other Ways of Taking Opium	p. 86
Laudanum	p. 86
Smoking Opium	p. 86
Injection, Snorting, Etc.	p. 88
Fogle's Guide to Making (a sort of) Laudanum	p. 89
Poppy Cultivation	p. 97
How to Plant	p. 106
Where to Get Seeds
Harvesting	p. 115
Papaver Somniferum and Opioid Drugs	p. 121
Opium Identification	p. 125
Morphine	p. 128
Opium Perfume, the Real Thing	p. 130
Pharmokinettcs and Pharmacology of Opiates	p. 131
Opioid Drugs	p. 132
How Methadone Got to America	p. 139
Endorphins	p. 143
The Brain's Opium	p. 146
More Than just a Passel of Endorphins	p. 148
The Dapper Pipie	p. 150
The Discovery of Morphine	p. 153
The pain of Morphine Science and politics	p. 158
Morphine and Heroin	p. 161
Part One: Morphine	p. 162
Extraction and Isolation	p. 162
Classical Processes for Opium Extraction	p. 164
Merck Process	p. 164
Thiboumery and Mohr Process	p. 166
Making Morphine Out of Mom's Codeine Pills	p. 167
Part Two: Heroin	p. 173
The Golden Triangle Method	p. 174
Heroin Manufacturing in Afghanistan	p. 178
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