Introduction
Addiction to opium is a problem in the modern society despite all attempts to legalize the use of this drug in some countries. It is a problem because the use of this narcotic means not only the pure addiction, it results in various diseases ranging from problems with berthing and disfunction of lungs work up to heart attacks. There is evidence given by some scholars that the use of opium leads to the cases of oesophagus and bladder cancer.
Description of opium-addict
Opium itself is a narcotic substance produced from the seed of opiate poppies. It is used in medicine due to its analgetic properties and this is the only sphere of the legal use of this drug. Another way of its usage is the production of heroine which is unlawful throughout the world. The use of opium leads to strong addiction, causes withdrawal pains and often becomes the reason of serious diseases. The traffic of opium became unlawful only at the beginning of the 20th century when the scientists discovered the real properties of this drug and found out that it causes addiction. Till that time opium brought serious profit to the budgets of many countries, especially Great Britain, because opium trade was one of the leading branches of the economy.
It was at that time when Thomas De Quincey wrote his famous book “Confessions of an English Opium Eater” (1822). The book, which is autobiographical, reveals in detail the experiences of the author after using opium. It describes vividly uncontrollable urges and withdrawal-caused nightmares, ranging from the euphoric to the disturbing.
Finishing the book De Quincey can not control his visions, they become realer and realer. The author himself was an opium-addict who tried opium for the first time at the age of nineteen while studying in Worcester College in Oxford (De Quincey, 1985). Since that time he never gave up the addiction and consumed opium till the end of his life. In this essay we are going to examine the causes and effects of opium, and the book by Thomas De Quincey will provide us with a plenty of examples of the states the opium use can lead to.
In most cases people start taking opium in order to get rid of this or that kind of pain which can not be overcome or treated by any other means. De Quincey’s experience started as an attempt to eliminate the pain he could not stand any more. “…I awoke with excruciating rheumatic pains of the head and face, from which I had hardly any respite for about twenty days… By accident I met a college acquaintance who recommended opium.” (De Quincey, 1985).
At first people do not notice any harmful effect of “the celestial drug” (De Quincey, 1985) as it brings them relief and they forget about everything: “…oh! Heavens! What a revulsion! What an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! What an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my eyes…” (De Quincey, 1985). From here derives another cause why people start taking opium with no fear – they either do not know about its harmful effects or ignore the accessible warning information. Asking themselves how the substance bringing such pleasure can be harmful these people do not pay attention to the scientific researches which prove that opium really destructs the organism.
The author of the above mentioned “Confessions of an English Opium Eater” also denies any negative sides of opium influence saying “that no quantity of opium ever did, or could intoxicate” (De Quincey, 1985). The effect of this wrong belief is that people can not understand why they get this or that disease and think that it is something that ca not be explained. But the people who understand the situation realize quickly that all serious illnesses of opium-addicts are caused by the use of this drug.
Effect from opium
One more effect the opium use usually has upon the addicts consists in permanent terrible visions which follow each taking of the narcotic. With the flow of time and with the gradual increase of the dose the visions become realer and more and more horrible giving the addicts no chances to get rid of them. De Quincey describes one of the visions in the following words: “Some of them… represented vast Gothic halls: on the floor of which stood all sorts of engines and machinery… expressive of enormous power put forth, and resistance overcome.
Creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceived a staircase; and upon it, groping his way upwards, was Piranesi himself: follow the stairs a little further, and you perceive it come to a sudden abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who had reached the extremity, except into the depths below.” (De Quincey, 1985).
Conclusion
All this causes and effects of opium-addiction could not be understood by Thomas De Quincey and the people of his epoch because the science was on a lower stage of its development and did not allow people to know the real state of things. Nowadays the situation is different – everything is known about opium and its effects but the problem of addiction still exists despite all the grievous examples that the history of the mankind constantly gives since the time when opium was discovered by the man.
Today’s world tends to legalize the use of opium which is not a wise step, I believe. Opium has dual effect – it brings pleasure and temporary relief from pain but at the same time causes illnesses and destroys the organism, and it is this side of its influence that stays permanently. The lines by Thomas De Quincey illustrate perfectly the essence of opium use: “Opium! Dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain!” (De Quincey, 1985). But let us not try to find out their truthfulness, because there are a lot of other things to be tested in this life.
Works Cited
De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Other Writings. Ed. Grevel Lindop. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.