Challenge: How to break our centuries-old love affair with opium and other narcotics

No End in Sight: The Abuse of Pre­scrip­tion Nar­cotics (Cere­brum):

“For cen­turies upon cen­turies, peo­ple have used opi­um or its components—morphine and oth­er sim­i­lar narcotics—to get “high” or feel mel­low. Opi­um is tied to ancient civ­i­liza­tions in Egypt, Per­sia, and Chi­na and such fig­ures as Alexan­der the Great, Hip­pocrates, John Keats, and John Jacob Astor. Paint­ings por­tray old Chi­nese men relax­ing and appar­ent­ly deep in thought in rock­ing chairs, smok­ing pipes filled with opi­um, dried latex that comes from pop­pies grown in many regions in Asia. In coun­tries such as Afghanistan and Myan­mar, opi­um pro­duc­tion and expor­ta­tion is the basis of their economies.

While raw opi­um prod­ucts his­tor­i­cal­ly have been high­ly prized mood-alter­ing drugs, one of their main active com­po­nents, mor­phine, con­verts very eas­i­ly, with a sim­ple chem­i­cal step, to hero­in. ” Keep read­ing arti­cle over at Cerebrum.