Opium as a Wartime Gift and Remedy

Early Cultivation in Mesopotamia (3400 BCE)

• Opium poppies were first cultivated in ancient Mesopotamia

• Sumerians refer to it as hul gil, or the “joy plant”

• Became a ritual substance and medicinal tool for pain relief, sleep, and spiritual practice

Opium in Classical Medicine (1st -12th Century)

• Greco-Roman and Arab physicians used opium as a standard painkiller

  1. Hippocrates 

  2. Galen

  3. Avicenna

• It travels through trade and becomes embedded in global medical traditions

Opium Enters Global Trade (17th -18th Century)

• European merchants (British East India Company) scaled opium cultivation in India and exported it to China

  1. Cultivated in Bengal and Bihar, turning opium into a profit engine for colonial administration

• Increased with the rise of European imperial expansion

First Opium War (1839-1842)

• Britain coerces Qing China into opening to the opium trade through military force

  1. The Treaty of Nanjing forced China to cede to Hong Kong, establish ports, and tolerate opium inflows

• Widespread addiction destabilizes Chinese society.

Second Opium War (1856-1860)

• Britain and France fight again for the second time to expand diplomatic access and commercial privileges 

• The war ended with the Treaties of Tianjin and the Convention of Beijing, which opened additional ports

  1. Opium becomes a symbol of Western imperial violence.

American Civil War and “Opium Slavery” (1860s)

• Morphine and laudanum are widely used in battlefield medicine, used to manage pain from surgery, amputation and chronic wartime injuries

• As soldiers return home, thousands of veterans return home addicted

  1. "Opium slavery" to contemporaries -- first large-scale addiction crises

Heroin Introduced (1898)

• Marketed by Bayer as a "safe, non-addictive alternative" to morphine, heroin was quickly embraced

• Within a few years, clinicians realized that it was even more addictive and potent

Women and Opium (Early 1900s)

• Women, especially middle and upper-class women,  increasingly become the face of opium use in the United States, both as patients and as individuals resisting social control.

  1. Menstruation pain

  2. "Nervous disorders"

• Reformers, physicians, and moral crusaders increasingly target them, turning medical dependence into a battle over gender, respect, and bodily autonomy.

Harrison Narcotics Act (1914)

• The U.S. places strict federal regulations on opium and coca products, shifting addiction from a medical condition to a criminalized one

• Registration, taxation, and tight control of all narcotic transactions began to take place

WWI (1914-1918)

• Morphine became the primary battlefield painkiller, allowing surgeons to perform rapid procedures under wartime conditions

• Caused dependency among veterans

WWII (1939-1945)

• Potable morphine injections are standard in soldiers' first-aid kits

• White army sergeants often underdose Black soldiers due to racist beliefs that they “feel less pain,” worsening suffering and survival outcomes.

Veterans and Opioids (1950s-1970s)

• Many WWII and Vietnam veterans developed long-term addictions

• Artistic expression (music, writing, and visual art) emerges as a way of rebuilding identity after trauma.

Popular Culture Representation (1990s)

• Films like Forrest Gump portray heroin use, overdose risk, and later HIV transmission through needle sharing

• Linked substance use to the rising HIV/AIDS crisis

Opioid Epidemic (2000s-Present)

• Mass prescriptions of drugs like OxyContin, fentanyl, and synthetic opioids lead to unprecedented overdose deaths

• Exposes systemic failures in healthcare and regulation, shaping debates