opium

Opium was the title of KMFDM's first demo tape; a few were made and circulated through bars and the like. Sometime in 1998 or 99 (I believe), Sascha Konietzko did manage to find a copy of the master tapes in a German studio's vault. He expressed an intent to re-release the album, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside since KMFDM soon after became quite irritated with their label, and then disbanded.

Tracks:

Penetration

Splatter

Fix Me Up!

Mating Sounds of Helicopters

Warp'd

Your Monkey's Business

Helmut! Mein Helmut!

Cunt-boy

The Smell

There were no legal restrictions on the importation and use of opium until the early 1900s. In those days, patent medicines often contained opium without warning labels. Today there are state, federal, and international laws governing the production and distribution of narcotic substances, and there is little abuse of Opium in the United States.

At least 25 alkaloids can be extracted from opium. These fall into two general categories, each producing markedly different effects. The first, know as the phenanthrene alkaloids, represented by morphine and codeine, are used as analgesics and cough suppresants; the second, isoquinoline alkaloids, represented by papaverine (an intestinal relaxant) and noscapine (a cough suppressant), have no significant influence on the central nervous system and are not regulated under the CSA.

Although a small amount of opium is used to make antidiarreal preparations, such as paregoric, virtually all the opium imorted into the United States is broken down into its alkaloid constituents, principally morphine and codeine.

Information gotten from a book supplied to libraries by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.

Definition And History

Many substances with high pharmacological activity can be extracted from the plant Papaver somniferum, known popularly as 'poppies'. By cutting the papaver somniferum pod when it is still green, a milky juice can be obtained, and that is the opium (the word opium in Greek means juice).

When dried, this juice is called opium powder. It contains several highly active substances. The most known is the morphine. The word 'morphine' derives from the greek mythologic God Morpheus, the God of the dreams.

One can easily figure out the effects of opium and morphine by their names. Morphine -> dream; somniferum -> from the latin meaning 'sleep inducer'. In other words, they're depressors of the Central Nervous System (or CNS), and make the brain function at a slower pace than normal. But opium still contain other substances, and codeine is also well known. It is still possible to obtain another substance, heroin, when making a small chemical modification in morphine's formula. Hence, heroin is a semi-synthetic substance (or semi-natural).

These substances are called opiate drugs or just opiates, for they come from the opium; they can be natural opiates when they don't suffer any modification (morphine, codeine), or semi-synthetic opiates when they are resultant from partial modifications of the natural substances (as in the case of heroin).

But the human being was capable of imitating nature by manufacturing in laboratories several substances with similar action of opiates: meperidine, propoxiphene and methadone are just a few examples. These completely synthetic substances are called opioids (meaning: "similar to opiates").

All these substances are put into capsules, pills or vials, becoming medicine.

based on my experience and the information i've gathered from others, in raw form, opium is currently available in three types: a black, sticky, pliable lump, which is the milk of the poppy pod, and can be called "buds" or "buttons" depending where you are; a red, rocklike, formerly powerdy lump, usually called "red rock"; and a white, rocklike lump, usually called "white rock". (If I'm wrong on names or anything or missing something, let me know please!)

Opium is also the source for several derivatives, including the well-known morphine, codeine, and heroin, but also methadone, oxycodone (Percoset, OxyContin), mepiridine (Demerol), and laudanum (essentially a morphine tincture in brandy). All of the previously mentioned are controlled or illegal substances. http://opioids.com/offshorepharmacy/index.html provides potential sources for certain of these derivatives.

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NOTE: Providing this URL does not constitute my condoning use of controlled and/or illegal substances. Breaking the law's bad.

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One should note that opium and the majority of its derivatives are highly addictive and, if used, should be used with caution.

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As a sidebar, a Google search on opium provided LOTS of Japanese sites that my browser wouldn't support, lots of information on the opium wars, lots of French pages about a band called opium, lots about growing opium poppies, and very very little on the actual illicit substance itself.

O"pi*um (?), n. [L., fr. Gr. poppy juice, dim. of vegetable juice.] Chem.

The inspissated juice of the Papaver somniferum, or white poppy.

⇒ Opium is obtained from incisions made in the capsules of the plant, and the best flows from the first incision. It is imported into Europe and America chiefly from the Levant, and large quantities are sent to China from India, Persia, and other countries. It is of a brownish yellow color, has a faint smell, and bitter and acrid taste. It is a stimulant narcotic poison, which may produce hallucinations, profound sleep, or death. It is much used in medicine to soothe pain and inflammation, and is smoked as an intoxicant with baneful effects.

Opium joint, a low resort of opium smokers. [Slang]

 

© Webster 1913.