Opium - Consequences

Consequences

Opium production is a problem that wrecks lives in many parts of the world. Farmers in Southeast Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are forced—by economic need or by powerful drug lords—to grow great quantities of illegal poppies. These poppies supply the opium that becomes the heroin that hooks recreational drug users in Europe, Russia, the United States, and just about everywhere else. It is rare to find an American opium user, but in 2003 the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) observed that 119, 000 teenagers between the ages of twelve and eighteen reported using heroin at least once. Since heroin is just opium that has been chemically altered to work more quickly and more powerfully, it is safe to say that all the consequences of heroin abuse can be traced to opium abuse.

Afghanistan and Opium Production

The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan imposed severe penalties on anyone caught growing illegal opium poppies. Since the Taliban regime fell in 2001, poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has skyrocketed. According to a 2005 article in the Christian Science Monitor, Afghanistan produces almost 90 percent of the world's illegal opium. Most of it is refined into heroin and sent to Europe, Russia, and the United States.

The result? Heroin is cheaper, higher in purity, and easier to obtain than ever before.

The United States and the United Nations are working with the Afghan government to reduce illegal drug trafficking in Afghanistan. International aid workers report that corruption based on poppy production is so widespread that police officers and local officials are often paid more to overlook poppy fields than they can make in legal salaries. Lawmakers who try to curb poppy production run the risk of assassination.

The consequences of trying to support a drug habit include criminal behavior such as theft, armed robbery, drug dealing, and prostitution. They also include health issues such as the possibility of contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that leads to AIDS, or hepatitis viruses from shared needles; malnutrition from a lack of appetite; and loss of quality of life. Addictive opiates tear families apart and deprive people of jobs, college loans, driver's licenses, and social status. Users face criminal records, lengthy detoxificationOften abbreviated as detox; a difficult process by which substance abusers stop taking those substances and rid their bodies of the toxins that accumulated during the time they consumed such substances. programs, and long-lasting cravings for the drug they are trying to kick.

Opium Chronology

4000 BCE     Opium poppies are cultivated in the Fertile Crescent (now Iran and Iraq) by the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia.

1552 BCE     An ancient Egyptian papyrus text from the city of Thebes lists 700 medical uses for opium.

183 BCE     Carthaginian General Hannibal uses a fatal dose of opium to commit suicide.

600-900 CE     Arabic traders introduce opium to China.

1524     Swiss doctor Paracelsus mixes opium with alcohol and names the product laudanum.

1821     Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) publishes Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

1839–1842/1856–1860     Great Britain and China engage in the "Opium Wars" when China tries to forbid opium imports.

1896     More than 300 opium "dens" operate in New York City. Users recline "on the hip" as they smoke the drug through long-stemmed pipes.

1909     The first International Opium Commission is held in Shanghai, China on February 1.

1909     The Smoking Opium Exclusion Act is passed.

1914     The Harrison Narcotics Act is enacted in the United States.

1942     The Opium Poppy Control Act makes it illegal to grow opium poppies in the United States, even as garden flowers.

1970     The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act names opium a Schedule II controlled substance, recognizing its uses in pain relief as well as its potential for addiction and abuse.

2005     After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, opium poppy production begins to soar in Afghanistan, accounting for almost 90 percent of the illegal heroin created worldwide.

How does opium affect world politics? In December of 2004, Mark Steven Kirk, a Republican congressman from Illinois, returned from Afghanistan to report that notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda terrorist network, has used cash earned from opium production to pay for his personal bodyguards, weapons, and secret hiding places. Al Qaeda has paid Pakistani drug lords to help keep bin Laden hidden from U.S. forces. Afghan drug dealers have also worked with bin Laden to provide shelter on their side of the border. According to Kirk, the purchase of a packet of heroin in the United States helps America's worst enemies avoid arrest and prosecution half a world away.