KONTROL KONTROL It is known that, from the very beginning of human history, psychoactive substances have been used for pleasure, pain relief, and healing. In primitive societies, during healing ceremonies, tribal rituals, and rites of passage into manhood, methods such as fasting, dehydration, sleep deprivation, social and emotional isolation, painful stimuli, dance, meditation, prayer, auditory stimuli, and hypnotic suggestions\u2014to reach states of consciousness distinct from everyday levels. In addition to these methods, psychoactive substances such as hallucinogenic plants, opium derivatives, coca leaves, and cannabis played a major role (\u00d6gel, 1997). <\/p>\n
It is known that the Aztec and Maya civilizations used mushrooms containing hallucinogenic substances in shamanic rituals. Amanita muscaria, a psychoactive substance, was also a type of mushroom used in shamanic rituals on the Asian continent. Cocaine is still used today by South American indigenous peoples to cope with harsh natural conditions, hunger, and fatigue during long journeys on foot. In Hindu texts dating back 3,000 years, cannabis was held in a sacred place. In ancient Rome and Greece, opium was used to treat many illnesses and alleviate various problems\u2014for example, to quiet children who cried excessively. Before the Common Era, these substances were widely used in Egyptian, Persian, and Indian civilizations. In Mesopotamia, records related to the Assyrians and Sumerians also mention the cultivation of opium and hemp. These substances were considered divine and sacred plants. There is evidence that these substances were used in shamanic rituals in the Mongol, Turkic, and Siberian regions. In China, however, evidence of the use of these substances dates back only to the 10th century (\u00d6gel, 1997). <\/p>\n
In Neolithic villages in Switzerland dating to the fourth millennium B.C., consisting of houses built on stilts, remains of cultivated poppy seeds and their capsules have been found. According to botanical analyses, these are Papaver somniferum or a hybrid species (Booth, 1996).<\/p>\n
Around 3400 B.C., opium poppies were being cultivated in the Tigris-Euphrates river systems of Lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians, who were the first in the world to establish a civilization and develop agriculture, used the ideograms \u201chul\u201d and \u201cgil\u201d for opium poppy, which translates to \u201cplant of pleasure\u201d (K\u00f6knel, 1976).<\/p>\n
In the book on medicinal plants known as \u201cPun Tsao,\u201d which is said to have been written in 40 volumes by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung, who lived around 2735 B.C., \u201cCannabis\u201d is listed among the 265 medicinal substances (K\u00f6knel, 1976).<\/p>\n
By the end of the second millennium B.C., opium was already known in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Medical tablets in the library of Ashurbanipal, King of Babylon, mention the sap of the opium poppy. However, these are thought to be copies of older texts. According to the physicians of the time, opium was a cure for almost every ailment and was sometimes used in combination with licorice root or melesene. Of the 115 plant mixtures mentioned, 42 involve opium. Opium was harvested in the early morning hours by women and children, and the sap oozing from the incisions in the poppy capsules was collected using small iron ladles (Booth, 1997).<\/p>\n
The oldest opium find also came from Egypt; a sample was discovered in the tomb of Cha, dating from the 15th century B.C. Around the same time, the city of Thebes in Egypt had become so famous for its poppy fields that opium produced in Egypt was referred to as \u201cTheban opium.\u201d The name of the alkaloid \u201cthebaine\u201d also derives from this city. In the 1552 B.C.E., the Theban Medical Papyrus, as well as in other sources such as the Veterinary and Gynecological Papyri found at Kahun and dating from 2160\u20131788 B.C.E., opium is frequently mentioned alongside other natural remedies and medicines: Opium is included among the 700 remedies listed in the first source\u2014sometimes referred to as the Ebers Papyrus after the scholar Georg Moritz Ebers, who discovered the document\u2014and an entire section is devoted to explaining how to use opium to calm unruly children. The prescription in this section recommends mixing opium with fly droppings to form a paste, sifting it through a sieve, and using it for four days (Booth, 1997).<\/p>\n
Opium, which has been known as a medicine in China since the 7th century, suddenly took on a new dimension in the 17th century with the spread of tobacco\u2014first to Europe and then to Asia\u2014from the Americas, and the growing popularity of tobacco smoking. The practice of mixing opium with tobacco and burning it slowly\u2014which provided pleasure without the life-threatening risks associated with oral consumption\u2014rapidly popularized its use. The Chinese emperors were quick to recognize the economic implications of this rapidly growing habit in their country, and as early as 1729, Emperor Yuang-\u00c7eng banned its sale and consumption. In 1773, the British recognized the importance of this trade, and the British East India Company secured a monopoly on the cultivation of opium in Bengal and its export to China. Despite the ban imposed by Yuang-\u00c7eng in 1729, the 200 chests of opium gum that reached China that same year had increased to 1,000 chests by 1767. In 1796, Emperor Jiaqing completely banned the import and cultivation of opium. Between 1820 and 1830, the annual amount of opium entering China reached 10,000 chests. This trade exceeded 40,000 chests in 1838, and thus the Company\u2019s trade with China shifted in Britain\u2019s favor. Until then, Britain had been forced to pay with gold and silver to obtain Chinese porcelain and silk, but now it was paying solely with opium. However, the Chinese Empire subsequently launched a serious campaign against opium and, in 1839, had 20,000 chests of opium seized from warehouses burned in the city square in Canton. The loss to the British East India Company was devastating (Babao\u011flu, 1997). <\/p>\n
In February 1840, the British government decided to launch an expedition against China. British forces attacked Canton in May 1841 and withdrew after receiving a ransom of six million dollars. Thus, the First Opium War began. Later, in 1842, a second war broke out, resulting in the signing of the Treaty of Nanking and the cession of Hong Kong to Britain. Five ports were opened to Britain, and the right to trade\u2014which until then had been granted as a favor by the Chinese Empire\u2014became a definitive privilege; furthermore, 21 million dollars in reparations were paid to Britain, and subsequently, a series of wars broke out, again due to opium. The number of Chinese who lost their lives in connection with the opium trade ranged from 200 million to 500 million, according to various estimates (Babao\u011flu, 1997). <\/p>\n
REFERENCES:<\/strong> KONTROL KONTROL It is known that, from the very beginning of human history, psychoactive substances have been used for pleasure, pain relief, and healing. In primitive societies, during healing ceremonies, tribal rituals, and rites of passage into manhood, methods such as fasting, dehydration, sleep deprivation, social and emotional isolation, painful stimuli, dance, meditation, prayer, auditory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":846,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-883","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":888,"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/883\/revisions\/888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umudder.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n1) BABAO\u011eLU, A.N., (1997) Drugs and Their History, Analiz Printing, Publishing, Design, and Production Ltd., Kaynak Publications, Istanbul.
\n2) BOOTH, M., (1996) From Opium to Heroin: The 6,000-Year History of Drugs, Acar Printing, Istanbul.
\n3) K\u00d6KNEL, \u00d6., (1976) Drug Problems Throughout Human History, Geli\u015fim Publications, \u00c7elik Cilt Printing House, Istanbul.
\n4) \u00d6GEL, K., (1997) Narcotics and Addiction, \u0130leti\u015fim Publishing, \u015eefik Printing House, Istanbul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"