Comments on: From opium antiques collector to addict

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

And if I had but a patch of land I’d be happier right now.

By: Missy Pants

Missy Pants — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:32:00 +0000

Is that dressing as a clown to commit murders or murdering clowns? Cuz I’m all for one of those…

By: Layne

Layne — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Given his commitment to subject, I hope he never decides to write a book on bestiality or clown murder.

By: Jonathan Roberts

Jonathan Roberts — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:59:00 +0000

More like a British curse on the Chinese, I’d have said… Obviously you and Alan Moore are being sarcastic, but it doesn’t seem to be backed up by your second comment, which seems either NIMBY / idealistic or vaguely imperialistic in the worst sense of the word. Maybe I’m just reading it wrong.

Incidentally, I was reading a letter from the Chinese Commissioner in Canton to Queen Victoria that seemed remarkably straightforward and heartfelt, given what was at stake at the time.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/texts/com-lin.html

By: LogrusZed

LogrusZed — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 07:51:00 +0000

I had a similar problem with Pokemon and pornography.

By: teapot

teapot — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 06:33:00 +0000

Yeah.. opm is the shiz. I only hit it once but the addictive nature of it seems peculiar to me.. I really liked it.. I love getting loose.. I could source and afford some at a moments notice if need be, but I’ve not had urges to get on it since.

If there’s ever an opportunity to partake I would highly recommend it, but learn from the experience of others and understand that it’s a slippery slope if you fall.

By: Lilah

Lilah — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:52:00 +0000

“Karl, who had at one time been addicted to heroin when he was living in New York City, wanted to do the story, but he didn’t want to get anywhere near the opium, obviously…he asked me to smoke the drug so he could observe and write the details into his story.”

Christ, what an asshole.

By: blissfulight

blissfulight — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:34:00 +0000

Isn’t it great? So many untold stories within the story. My favorite passage:

“I am not going to rhapsodize here about opium. But I will say this: it is the perfect drug. There is nothing else like it. In this age of pharmaceutical-pill pushing, it delivers all that drugs such as Prozac promise. Forget about the medieval-like bugaboo of serotonin, the atrocities of Freud, the iatrogenic “disorders” that compose the Malleus Maleficarum by which today’s shrinks and psychopharmacologists con their vulnerable marks. All the pills and all the whoredom of psychotherapy in the world are nothing compared with the ancient Coptic words of the Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” It is as simple and unsolvable as that. Forget about the interplay of opium and serotonin. Its interplay with the wisdom of the Gospel of Thomas is the thing. Its vapors are of that thing within.”

By: gwailo_joe

gwailo_joe — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:28:00 +0000

I tore out the pages of that issue and have them somewhere in my collection of ephemera: great story…

Sometimes I imagine that if my life turns to utter shit or I’m diagnosed with some incurable illness, I might just traipse back to the Golden Triangle and spend my last days immersed in a fauxpium dreamscape.

But lately I have been fairly healthy and prosperous so maybe I’ll just read a book about it.

By: voiceinthedistance

voiceinthedistance — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 04:22:00 +0000

As an eighteen year old (in 1976), I probably disposed of 8 or 10 grams of opium by burning them in a pipe. I could see how slippery the slope was, because it was a very pleasant experience. The lack of ready availability and not willpower prevented me from following in the author’s footsteps. I’d like to think that I could manage my addiction, but I will never know. I know that stronger people than me were not up to the task. Did I mention that it was a very pleasant experience?

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 02:09:00 +0000

Yeah, but it’s still legal to grow your own. But it’s not legal to scratch a pod to get the sap.

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:55:00 +0000

Until not too very long ago, you could buy boxes of dried poppy pods on eBay. For floral arrangements. And I have heard that—if you knew what you were doing—you could brew a tea of sufficient potency and chemistry to spend an entire afternoon prone having a rather indecently good neurochemical time of it. Then the Federal Government decided that floral arrangements were bad for you. And now you can’t do that anymore.

By: winkydog

winkydog — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:46:00 +0000

Emily Hahn’s No Hurry To Get Home has seductively descriptive chapters on becoming an opium smoker during the Boxer Rebellion….can see how coulda gotten sucked in (pun intended?)

By: BrendanBabbage

BrendanBabbage — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:50:00 +0000

“Opium! A Heathen Curse on Christendom!”

—From Alan Moore

Hehe just joking…
Really awesome article and book, though.

I’m more angry there’s so much global control you can’t do things like that. There needs to be places that what is “Forbidden” in the so-called “Civilized” parts of the world can be practiced elsewhere.

By: blissfulight

blissfulight — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:08:00 +0000

A Vanity Fair article on the search for the last opium den: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2000/09/opium-dens-200009

By: awjt

awjt — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:03:00 +0000

If you can still stand up, you’re doing it wrong.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:54:00 +0000

“…you’re lying on the floor to do the actual smoking, but that’s just because it’s the most comfortable position to hold the pipe over the lamp. That’s the only reason the old photographs of opium dens show people lying down. It wasn’t because it made them so stoned they couldn’t stand up.”

This was something I wasn’t aware of.

By: awjt

awjt — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Sounds a lot like my obsession with New York City models.

By: Quiche de Resistance

Quiche de Resistance — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:51:00 +0000

I just drink laudanum.

By: Once Dead Flesh

Once Dead Flesh — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:41:00 +0000

Damn, that’s rough, but must be an interesting read. Opiate addiction in all its forms (from swallowing Vicodin to bootin’ junk) is always brutal, and after 5 years or so it still helps to hear/read others’ stories of success and how they continue to cope. Thanks for sharing this.

By: Ender Wiggin

Ender Wiggin — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:38:00 +0000

That is..somewhat hilarious. sounds like an interesting book, i hope there’s plenty of detail about the history and tools of the culture and a minimum of whining about chasing the dragon.

By: Ender Wiggin

Ender Wiggin — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:38:00 +0000

(been there, done that…i feel justified in seeing the humor.)

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:26:00 +0000

And thus Mr. Martin joins the likes of Jean Cocteau, Thomas de Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Baudelaire.

It’s enough to make me think about trying the stuff.