Dreamland: Part 1: The Poppy Summary & Analysis

Humankind has been fascinated by opium since the beginning of civilization. Thebes, in ancient Egypt, “was the first great center of opium-poppy production.” Indians, Greeks, Venetians, and the Arab empire expanded opium’s reach in pre-modern times; they “saw opium as an antidote to the burdens of life.”  

Friedrich Sertürner derived morphine from opium in the 1800s. Morphine was stronger than opium and a better painkiller. War further spread the drug, as countries had to learn to make their own morphine to help wounded soldiers. Scottish doctor Alexander Wood invented the hypodermic needle in 1853, which allowed for more accurate dosing. Wood also incorrectly believed that injecting morphine would prevent the patient from craving the drug, which had previously been eaten. Chinese immigrants brought opium and opium addicts to the U.S. Opium dens were outlawed, and morphine replaced opium as the U.S.’s major underground drug. Heroin was invented in 1874 by Dr. Adler Wright, who’d been searching for a nonaddictive morphine alternative. His discovery, diacetylmorphine, was rebranded as heroin (from heroisch in German) by Heinrich Dreser, a Bayer Laboratory chemist. Originally, heroin was considered nonaddictive and it was used for many ailments, which led to an increase in addictions.

The U.S. passed the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, which taxed opiates and medicines derived from the coca-leaf. This inspired a wave of anti-opiate sentiment among U.S. doctors and the public. Doctors stopped prescribing opiates, and the black market took over the drug trade. Heroin, which was cheaper and easier to make, replaced morphine as a street drug. Heroin doesn’t come in different “varietals,” so the only way it differs is in how pure or weak it is. Heroin pushers “learned to market aggressively” to get addicts to want their product above other street options. Ironically, although heroin was loathed by square America and became the favorite drug of America’s outcasts, the drug was actually “about the squarest of American things: business—dull, cold commerce.” Because addicts were slaves to their addictions, traffickers could run their businesses “almost according to principles taught in business schools.”