jan 1, 2500 BC - Opium

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Throughout history, whether in Greece, Rome, or in the territory of the Assyrians, opium has been known to be a functional painkiller and hypnotic. Brought to China by Islamic traders around 800 AD, it was used to great effect combating dysentery for another 800 years. Often grown historically in Southeast Asia, Iran, and Turkey, then ultimately cemented as Afghanistan’s bread and butter, opium is extracted as latex from poppies, and processed down from there into morphine and codeine (notice the -ine ending, the byproducts are alkaloids/alkaline). Opium was even a big enough rocker of the proverbial boat in China that two wars were fought over it, which wound up with the loss of Hong Kong (which gets its own government now!) and the opening to Western trade.

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