The milky juice derived from the un-ripe seed capsules of the poppy plant Papaver somniferum is called opium. This material, which dries to a brownish gum contains a large number of alkaloid compounds. These ALKALOIDS can be categorized into two major...

Opium is a drug that is derived from poppy juice. Its pain-relieving qualities have been known since ancient times. Opium was used by prehistoric inhabitants of what is now Switzerland, by ancient Greek physicians shortly after the time of Hippocrates,...

The sap of the poppy plant Papaver somniferum was used as a medicinal in China as early as the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE). By 1700 it was being smoked or eaten recreationally in Java, and the habit spread throughout Asia. Opium became a very...

The unripe seed capsules of the poppy plant (Papaver somniferum) produce a milky juice called opium. The opium poppy has white or blue-purple flowers and is widely grown in Asia, India, and Turkey, which supply much of the world's opium. Opium...

Opium is a narcotic formed from the latex released by lacerating (or "scoring") the immature seed pods of opium poppies (Papaver somniferum). It contains up to 16% morphine, an opiate alkaloid, which is most frequently processed chemically to produce...

A RECENT UN report on drugs in Afghanistan points to the success of eradication in decreasing the area under poppy cultivation by 21 percent during the past year. Yet this positive development is fragile and likely unsustainable. Instead of doctrinally clinging to eradication, the...

by Raymond Aron This, the most famous of Aron's works, was first published in 1955. It is now republished together with the essay "Fanaticism, Prudence and Faith," which was Aron's original response to his critics. It thus becomes the fifth volume in Transaction's...

A U.N. report released Tuesday showed that the "runaway train of drug addiction" has slowed, with estimated levels of global use holding steady for the third year in a row. Afghanistan's opium production, however, increased dramatically.The 2007 World Drug Report released by the Vienna-based U.N....

Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by nearly 50 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a U.N. report said Tuesday.The annual report also found that the estimated level of global drug use...

In the following essay, Lefebure explores the experimentations of the English Romantics with opium.