The ENTIRE Dark History of Opium

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For over 5,000 years, the poppy has promised peace, sleep, and relief. But behind the poetry lies one of history’s darkest cycles—medicine turned indulgence, indulgence turned dependency, and dependency turned ruin. From Sumerian clay tablets to the laudanum bottles of Victorian Britain, from the opium wars in China to the prescription pill epidemic of today, every age has believed it could control the “sleep-bringer.” Every age has been wrong.

In this episode, we trace the entire dark history of opium—its rise as a cure, its transformation into global commerce, its role in empire and war, and its survival into the modern opioid crisis. It is a story of comfort that never cured, wealth built on suffering, and a cycle of relief and destruction that repeats without end.

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