Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World

John Halpern; David Blistein

3.67

508 ratings by Goodreads

9781549181931: Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World

ISBN 10: 1549181939 ISBN 13: 9781549181931

Publisher: Hachette and Blackstone Publishing, 2019

From a psychiatrist on the frontlines of addiction medicine -- the former medical director of the Boston Center for Addiction Treatment and former director of the Laboratory for Integrative Psychiatry at the legendary McLean Hospital -- comes the fascinating history of the flower that helped to build, and now threatens, modern society.

In 2017 over 60,000 Americans died as the result of opioid overdoses, more than died annually in this country during the peak of the AIDs epidemic, more than die every year from breast cancer, and more Americans than died in the entire Vietnam War. But even though the overdose crisis ravaging our nation seems impossible to ignore, few understand how it came to be.

Opium tells the extraordinary and at times harrowing story of how we arrived at today's crisis -- a story that begins at the dawn of human civilization with enterprising poppy farmers in Mesopotamia, explores how Greek physicians and forgotten chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial powers spirited opium around the world in the interest of building out empires, and finally how international drug companies used the substance as a model for a wave of pills that laid the groundwork for today's raging overdose epidemic.

Throughout, the book demonstrates how opium has served to build our modern world, from trade networks to medical protocols to drug enforcement policies. Most important, it reveals how crucial misjudgments and patterns of greed served to spread dangerous uses of the drug, hurtling the world toward crisis -- and how, using the insights of history and the miracles of state-of-the-art science, we can overcome it.

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About the Author:

David Blistein is a former writer for the PBS documentary Cancer, which was adapted from Siddhartha Mukherjee's Pulitzer Prize-winning history of cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies. He co-wrote Grover Cleveland Again! with legendary documentarian Ken Burns.

Review:

''The recommendations in this book should be seriously considered by anyone concerned with today's opioid epidemic.'' --Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy

''Wealthy patrons of the arts making fortunes off opioids? Blaming immigrants for a domestic drug crisis? Race-based enforcement?...It was as true in the 19th and 20th centuries as it is today. Opium insists that we take an unstinting look at the relationship between people and opioids and dares us to make the hard decisions necessary to deal with the crisis. This book is what history is supposed to be.'' --Ken Burns, filmmaker

''In this landmark project, John Halpern, MD, and David Blistein have for the first time combined a comprehensive history of opium with a clear-eyed look at today's opioid crisis. By unpacking the complex story of how this powerful drug has woven its way through human history and cultures, they give readers profound insight into what drives contemporary use of opium and its derivatives as well as realistic, effective, and compassionate recommendations for helping those who suffer from the disease of addiction.'' -- Dr. Andrew Weil (MD)

''An engrossing and highly readable account of our tangled relationship with a flower.'' --Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

''Halpern and Blistein take us on an astonishing journey through time and space, revealing how racism and ethnic prejudice have distorted popular views of opium for centuries and how those who were at one time said to be paragons of American virtue-from Harry Anslinger to Joseph McCarthy to the Sackler family -- have played their part in creating the opiate epidemic. With Opium, we can more fully understand how and why the 'war on drugs' keeps failing. A fascinating read with practical advice on how to get out of the mess we're in.'' --Julie Holland, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Weekends at Bellevue and Moody Bitches

''Opium is the most important, provocative, and challenging book I've read in a long time....Makes timely and startling connections among painkillers, politics, finance, and society in clear, non-technical prose that kept me alternately riveted and amazed. We may not be able to get this drug out of our system, but Opium will help everyone gain a better understanding of and more control over its uses and abuses.'' --Laurence Bergreen, New York Times bestselling author of Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu and Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

''Authoritative, engaging, and accessible, this call for action offers solutions -- insurance and criminal justice reforms, alternative treatments, and eradication of punishment -- and avenues to greater overall understanding.'' --Booklist

''Detailed and highly readable...[Opium] demonstrates convincingly that the best way to address today's epidemic is to acknowledge addiction as the brain disease that it is...The recommendations in this book should be seriously considered by anyone concerned with today's opioid epidemic.'' --Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, member of the President's Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis

''Highly informed and wonderfully entertaining.'' --Ethan A. Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance

''Halpern and Blistein expertly weave together the many strands of opium's history, from the poppy growers of Neolithic times to the politics of today's opiate epidemic. By learning the whole story and discovering the many erroneous beliefs and misguided policies that have occurred along the way -- the reader emerges with a far clearer picture of the problem and what perhaps we can do about it now.'' --Harrison G. Pope Jr., MD, professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School