Are not we sinners always knocking on heaven’s door? ibid.
This is the key to the Drood tomb. ibid. Durdles
Pray with me now. Choose the light. ibid. vicar
Opium makes you quick-witted – perhaps only because it calms the nerves and stills the emotions. Nothing, not even death, seems so important. Graham Greene, The Quiet American
On August 23rd 1840 British gun-ships landed here on Hong Kong Island. The Ching empire was about to feel the full force of history’s most successful narco-state. Professor Niall Ferguson, Ascent of Money: Chimerica, Channel 4 2008
With south-western China under British control the opium trade was given free rein. Drug addiction exploded. ibid.
China was an unknown forbidden. For four centuries her shores hadn’t been touched by the West. Tai-Pan 1986 starring Bryan Brown & John Stanton & Joan Chen & Tim Guinee & Bill Leadbitter & Russell Wong & Katy Behean & Kyra Sedgwick & Janine Turner & Norman Turner & Norman Rodway et al, director Dayle Duke
The foreigners poison us with Opium. ibid. opening address
For centuries there was only one substance that could reliably relieve pain: opium. A resin extracted from poppies, it is one of mankind’s oldest and most addictive drugs. Michael Mosley, Pain, Pus and Poison: The Search for Modern Medicines I: Pain, BBC 2013
Britain is in the grip of a drug crisis: each year more than five million of us are prescribed opioids, painkillers which can be as powerful as Class A drugs. In America a prescription opioid epidemic accounts for more deaths than gun crime. Now a landmark report suggests we may also have a problem. Horizon, Dr Michael Mosley, Addicted to Painkillers? Britain’s Opioid Crisis, BBC 2020
5.6 million adults in England and Wales are currently on prescription opioids. ibid.
Acute and chronic pain are fundamentally different. ibid.
The majority of opioid prescriptions handed out are for chronic pain. ibid.
Why are they on it? Who is responsible? ibid.
These over-the-counter drugs are being abused. ibid.
A Public Health England report found that it’s people who live in deprived areas who are more likely to be prescribed opioids. ibid.
The simple poppy has incredible power. For centuries it gave us opium, the world’s most dependable painkiller. But this flower has become known for a much more lethal drug – heroin. And its power of destruction. Heroin: Hooked, H2 2015
Cultivation of the opium poppy had sky-rocketed by more than 1,000 per cent within the first year of Afghanistan’s occupation. It was not long before the Taliban was rearming itself by taxing this opium harvest. Misha Glenny, McMafia
The key to the opium trade was British control of India where the opium was grown. Michael Wood, The Story of China V, BBC 2016
Prague: Opium-producing poppies can be grown almost anywhere in the world: the Czech Republic, one of the least evil places on Earth … Heroin Holiday in the Czech Republic, Vice TV 2013
While the Czech police and poppy growers’ union try to keep up the front you can’t turn Czech poppies into smack, Prague’s junkies know better. ibid.
To join them at their heroin summer camp. ibid.
‘What we cook here is 50% pure.’ ibid.
Extortion, kidnapping, theft, murder, executions can all result from the main activity of harvesting poppy. The Rise of Mexican Black Tar Heroin, rozzer, Vice TV 2016
I feel a load off my chest. ibid. addict
Opiate-related overdose deaths quadrupled 2002-2013. ibid.
For years the heroin market had been dominated by opium from central and south Asia … Mexico has become the third largest opium producer. ibid.
An entire community displaced by the drugs trade. ibid.
The United States is in the midst of the worst drug epidemic in its history. More people die from overdoses of opioid drugs than from car accidents or gun homicides. The epidemic was fuelled by an aggressive 1990s marketing campaign led by Purdue Pharma that promoted the widespread use of opioids to treat pain and minimized the risk of addiction. Warning: This Drug May Kill, Sky Atlantic 2017
‘Less than 1% of patients taking opioids actually become addicted.’ ibid. Purdue promotional video
Prescription opioids include OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet, Opana, Demerol, Dilaudid, Norco, Fentanyl, Codeine. Heroin is also an opioid. Deaths from prescription opioids have quadrupled since 1999. ibid.
In 2007 Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to lying about a risk of addiction to Oxycontin, paying one of the largest pharmaceutical settlements in US history. Yet Oxycontin and other opioids remain a multi-billion-dollar industry. More than 250 million prescriptions are written every year. ibid.
80% of heroin users started with prescription opioids. ibid.
With daily opioid use, physical dependence can develop within as little as one week. ibid.
91 people die every day from an opioid overdose. ibid.
Inside an epidemic: a radical new approach, the police and social workers on the ground, the personal battles, and the new face of addiction. Frontline: Chasing Heroin, PBS 2016
It’s been creeping up on us for a long time – America’s heroin problem. Overdoses from heroin and other opioids now kill more than 27,000 people a year and the numbers keep rising. ibid.
‘The marketing of OxyContin was the most aggressive marketing of a narcotic drug ever undertaken by a pharmaceutical producer.’ ibid. doctor
By 2001 Purdue was selling more than $1 billion of OxyContin a year. ibid.
Purdue Pharma admitted to charges of fraudulent marketing. The company paid $600 million in fines and settlements. ibid.
Mexican drug suppliers were ready: they would take the epidemic to a whole new level. ibid.
Up to 60% of addicts relapse in the first year after treatment. ibid.
90% of new heroin users are white. ibid.
One of three people referred to drug treatment come in through the criminal justice system. ibid.
Chicago Il, October 2 2015, 74 overdoses in 72 hours; Cincinnati Oh, August 2 2016, 20 overdoses in 12 hours; Louisville KY, August 31 2016, 8 Overdoses in 5 hours; Huntington WV, August 18 2016, 27 overdoses in 4 hours. Heroin Explosion, National Geographic 2017
This is the story of today’s opiate epidemic which has been called the worst drug crisis in American history. There is a new generation of heroin addicts, young people that cross all social, racial and economic groups. ibid.
Every day 91 people in the United States die of an opiate overdose. 35 of those are from heroin. ibid.
‘This generation seems to have found prescription opiates as their drug of choice.’ ibid. Dr Deebi Bassam
Most first-time abusers of painkillers obtain them from a friend or relative. ibid.
Florida became ground zero for the growing epidemic … Dealers abandoned traditional street drugs to get a slice of the Florida pill business. ibid.
One clinic wrote prescriptions for more than a million Oxycodone pills in a five-month period. ibid.
Each year more than 46,000 people die from a drug overdose. Chasing the Dragon: The Life of an Opiate Addict, 2016
‘Being addicted to opiates is like chasing a dragon; you’re constantly seeking that first high.’ ibid.
Approximately one in five high-school seniors reports misusing prescription drugs at least once in their lifetime. ibid.
A 2014 national survey found an estimated 1.4 million people in the US abused a prescription pain killer for the first time that year. ibid.
‘A girlfriend of mine introduced me to heroin; I could get a whole lot more for a whole lot less.’ ibid.
The alarm is growing more urgent and spreading further across Canada: Fentanyl – highly addictive and sometimes deadly is now a top priority across the country … an epidemic and an overwhelming crisis. Opioid Fentanyl Street Crisis, W5 CTV 2017
Drug overdoses killed nearly a thousand in this province last year. ibid.
Synthetic opioids are being cut into street drugs all across Canada. ibid.
Fentanyl has found its way into knockoff prescription painkillers, into party drugs and cocaine. People are overdosing across the country. ibid.