Thomas Jefferson's Opium Poppies

[Cheerful Charlie]

Thomas Jefferson, opium fiend.


....
Thomas Jefferson was a drug criminal. But he managed to escape the terrible sword of justice by dying a century before the DEA was created. In 1987 agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency showed up at Monticello, Jefferson's famous estate.

Jefferson had planted opium poppies in his medicinal garden, and opium poppies are now deemed illegal. Now, the trouble was the folks at the Monticello Foundation, which preserves and maintains the historic site, were discovered flagrantly continuing Jefferson's crimes. The agents were blunt: The poppies had to be immediately uprooted and destroyed or else they were going to start making arrests, and Monticello Foundation personnel would perhaps face lengthy stretches in prison.
...

How the DEA Scrubbed Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Poppy Garden from Public Memory

Visitors to Monticello don't learn how Jefferson cultivated poppies, and his personal opium use may as well never have happened.

www.alternet.org

 

[annewimsey]

Ohferpetessake! In a day before any other painkiller was available (other than OD'ing on whiskey, maybe) opium would have been a prized necessity if, say, a sythe cut you, or you had an infected tooth, or toe., or cancer, duuuuh.
Not so much now, just plant poppies that more or less look the same to avoid having the place trampled by marauding drug addicts after-hours.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

What amuses me greatly is the fact that up to the mid 80's visitors to Monticello could by packets of opium poppie seeds that were from descendents of Jefferson's opium poppies.

 

[steve_bank]

I would not say criminal in our current sensel.

In the 19th century opium was a major profitable trade commodity.

Between 1839 and 1842, British forces fought a war in China that benefitted drug smugglers. Their subsequent victory in the conflict opened up the lucrative Chinese trade to British merchants.

What we would call over the counter medicines today back then were laced with opium.

Opium tincture or laudanum was widely used in the 19th century as a pain killer or sleeping aid; it was highly addictive, leading to many of its users forming a drug addiction. Full title: Bottle of opium tincture or laudanum.

In the late 19th century there was an opium epidemic, along with alcohol. Both opium and alcohol led to the Temperance Movement that eventually led to Prohibition.

Initially Freud thought cocaine was a wonder drug to treat psychological problems.