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Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, the spirit of the spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx
Britain v China: a war fought over the most lucrative commodity on the planet: Opium. Mankind: The Story of All of Us X: Revolutions, History 2012
Opium – the Chinese had a taste for this highly addictive and illegal drug. Andrew Marr’s History of the World VII: Age of Industry, BBC 2012
By the 1830s the most successful drug pushers in the world weren’t Mexican bandits or Afghan warlords but the British. ibid.
China had been forced at gunpoint to open herself up to the modern global economy. ibid.
Off the coast of China, British traders made fortunes from ships freighted with addictive drugs. Jeremy Paxman, Empire IV: Making a Fortune, BBC 2012
There were an estimated twelve million peasants addicted to opium. ibid.
The British grew opium poppies in India ... Opium was making Britain rich. ibid.
The Opium Wars were about to begin ... China had been forced to enter the modern global economy. ibid.
The British continue to ship opium into China until well into the twentieth century. ibid.
There can never be peace and democracy in Afghanistan. Why? Because peace and democracy would expose and cut off corporate America’s opium and heroin trade at the source. So what was the payoff for the US/British war on Afghanistan? 1) The uncooperative Taliban warlords got kicked out and replaced by the cooperative Northern Alliance warlords; 2) Opium and heroin productions and revenues sky-rocketed; 3) Afghanistan got a new leader Hamid Karzai who just happens to be an ex-employee of Unicom Oil. The Ring of Power, 2008
When Skull & Bonesman George Bush senior became CIA director in the 1980s the CIA recruited Osama bin Laden to train Al Qaeda and Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan. The job of Osama’s trainees was not just to fight the Russian communists, it was run Afghanistan’s multi-billion-dollar opium trade. ibid.
He was only a guard: the Judge said so, the Prosecutor said so, I say so. Yet they sentence him like a smuggler. But those who smuggle by the lorry-load with convoys of opium and heroin none of them get arrested. Or when they are, they don’t stay arrested; it can’t be done. In this country power is in the hands of a few. The government is theirs. The drugs mafia controls government. Everyone knows the mafia rules; the government belongs to the mafia. I want you to know this. Afghan defence lawyer, reacting angrily to sentence of penniless client for sixteen years plus fine
The Western policies against the opium crop – the poppy crop – has been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban. But they put farmers out of work. They alienated people. And drove people into the arms of the Taliban. And the US has wasted hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on this program. And that is going to end. We are not going to support crop eradication. General Richard Holbrooke
Afghanistan ... Two million people across the country are involved in the cultivation of opium. More than 70% of the world’s heroin originates in Afghanistan. Drugs Inc s1e3: Heroin, National Geographic 2010
Syrup = Promethazine & Codeine is an opiate-based cough syrup. Drugs Inc s7e2: Hip Hop High
The international drug trade began in 1606 when Queen Elizabeth the First built England’s wealth by trafficking illegal opium from India to China. Secret Rulers of the World
Today, opium production in US-controlled Afghanistan, which now provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, breaks new production records nearly every year. The Washington Post, article ‘Afghanistan Opium Crop Sets New Record’
There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world. Jean Cocteau
The burden of the incommunicable. Thomas de Quincey, 1785-1859, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1856
Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium! ibid.
The contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to control, or to cause to be controlled, all persons manufacturing, importing, selling, distributing, and exporting morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts, as well as the buildings in which these persons carry such an industry or trade. Hague International Opium Convention 1912
Almighty God hath not bestowed on mankind a remedy of so universal an extent and so efficacious in curing diverse maladies as opiates. Thomas Sydenham, 1624-89
Before 1980 Afghanistan produced 0% of the world’s opium. After the US/CIA backed Mujahideen won the Soviet/Afghan war, by 1986 they were producing 40% of the world’s heroin supply. By 1999, they were producing 80% of the total market supply. Michael C Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon
The pain-killing properties of opium have been exploited for more than five-thousand years. Modern pharmacology has refined this potent narcotic into new forms, creating drugs like Codeine and Morphine. Heroin was first created in the late nineteenth century, a wonder drug synthesised from Morphine and three times as strong. Beyer Pharmaceuticals introduced it to the public in 1898, mistakenly marketed as non-addictive painkiller. The newly created drug was quickly removed from pharmacy shelves and went underground, creating the demand Afghan farmers feed. Afghan Heroin, The Lost War
It’s easy to begin the processing of opium into heroin. It requires only the most basic of chemicals. And a large supply of water. Opium is harvested from ripened poppy pods that are cut with small blades releasing a milky resin. The resin is raw opium. This sticky paste is boiled with slate lime creating a water-soluble morphine solution. The liquid morphine is filtered and re-heated with ammonium chloride. The end product, a dry morphine powder, is packed, transported to secret laboratories and processed. ibid.
When the wicked man runneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. The Mystery of Edwin Drood I, Vicar, BBC 2012
My Jack’s an opium eater. ibid.
To forget. To forget the pain and to forget this place. I hate it, Ned. I hate the grinding monotony of it. ibid. Jack
Weighed down by Life is Durdles. ibid.
Not frightened of Ghosts, then? That’s true. The dead can’t hurt ya. ibid. Durdles
What an odd little thing you are. ibid. Edwin Drood
I am an awkward species of a man. ibid. Mr Bridges
Edwin Drood is not worthy of her. ibid. Mr Neville
How wonderful. Such majesty. Such beauty frozen into stone. See how it rises. So far above our heads. All the way to heaven. ibid. Mr Neville, re church architecture
Oh how I do hate the indoors. The hellish indoors. The Mystery of Edwin Drood II
Blot out my transgressions. ibid. Drood
I cannot forgive those who trespass against me any more than I can forgive myself. ibid. Drood at prayer
To banish grief beyond endurance. To reach total eclipse without all hope of day … Blank and hopeless desolation. And then for a while it brings dreams of paradise and unimaginable pleasure. I have stood looking down into an abyss of divine enjoyment until a desolation more blank and hopeless than before returns. ibid. Jasper