Opium: Bombay to Canton

Opium: Bombay (Mumbai) to Canton (Guangzhou) Following text is a gleaning from River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh Later there would be much discussion on whether the Anahita was struck by the same storm that had hit the Ibis. Such information as was available then made it impossible to come to any reliable determination on this: what was certain was that the Anahita was less than a hundred miles west of Great Nicobar Island, heading for the Nicobar Channel, when she too an into bad weather. She had left Bombay sixteen days earlier and was on her way to Canton, by way of Singapore. Until then the voyage had been uneventful and the Anahita had...

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Poppy fields

Poppy fields, Opium, Taliban, Mujahadeen, Russians and Americans Following is an extraction from Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie The Russians were in Afghanistan and consuqently many Afghans had fled to Pakistan, and were even to be found at forward camp number 22 in the “free”-Azad-sector of Kashmir. In spite of the enormous numbers of refugees occupying huge, town-sized camps in the Pak northwest, the Afghans were not poor. There were extensive opium fields in the vicinity of the camps and the refugee chieftains brought their way into the poppy business, using the gold and jewelry they had brought across the border for capital and backing...

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Cold turkey off Heroin

Cold turkey off Heroin Following is a gleaning from Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts ISBN 0-349-11754-3 We all cope with anxiety and stress, to one degree or another, with the help of a cocktail of chemicals produced in the body and released in the brain. Chief among them is the endorphin group. The endorphins are peptide neurotransmitters that have pain-relieving properties. Anxiety and stress and pain bring on the endorphin response as a natural coping mechanism. When we take any of the opiates-morphine or opium or heroin, in particular-the body stops producing endorphins. When we stop talking opiates, there’s a lag of between five or...

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