Khaled Hosseini

Too often, stories about Afghanistan center around the various wars, the opium trade, the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves - their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles.

Afghani Novelist

Dennis C. Blair

I think you can go back in history and look at what the effect in Asia and the world was of a divided, fractured China from, you know, the opium wars through the Chinese civil war, and I don't think it was pretty for Asia or the world.

American Public Servant

Edmund Burke

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

Irish Statesman

Henri Frederic Amiel

Thought is a kind of opium; it can intoxicate us, while still broad awake; it can make transparent the mountains and everything that exists.

Swiss Philosopher

Antonin Artaud

It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.

French Dramatist

Thomas de Quincey

Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.

English Author

Robert Trout

Many Chinese saw opium as a poison introduced by foreign enemies.

American Journalist

Tom Robbins

Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.

American Author

Karl Marx

German Philosopher

Milan Kundera

Czechoslovakian Writer

Opium is prescribed legally by doctors for pain relief.

Medicinal Use

Opium can be used illegally for recreational purposes.

Illegal Recreation

Using opium may lead to a high risk of addiction.

Addiction Risk

Opium can symbolize anything numbing people's awareness to problems.

Metaphorical Use

Opium can describe a cultural phenomenon that pacifies people.

Cultural Critique

Opium represents an escape from reality, metaphorically.

Escapism

 how people are getting more active because of the Internet. Rarely hear about cyber hedonism, for example, how people are becoming passive. Why? Because they somehow assume that the Internet is going to be the catalyst of change that will push young people into the streets, while in fact it may actually be the new opium for the masses

Evgeny Morozov: How the...

 Sometimes I get help from the universe, it seems. My mother would say it was the ghost of my grandmother from the very first book, because it seemed I knew things I was not supposed to know. Instead of writing that the grandmother died accidentally, from an overdose of opium, while having too much of a good time,

Where does creativity...

 all describe early anesthetics containing things like opium poppy, mandrake fruit, and alcohol. Today, anesthesiologists often combine regional, inhalational and intravenous agents to get the right balance for a surgery. Regional anesthesia blocks pain signals from a specific part of the body

How does anesthesia...

 to maximize their profits. At first, Britain paid for all this Chinese tea with silver. When that proved too expensive, they suggested trading tea for another substance, opium. This triggered a public health problem within China as people became addicted to the drug.

The history of tea -...

 in an opium den." And the father says, "I'm very sorry. Yes, it's true, I lied. But how can I tell an eight-year-old boy that his father is a politician?" Now, as a politician myself, standing in front of you, or indeed, meeting any stranger anywhere in the world,

Rory Stewart: Why...

 Cotton does not compete with opium; a t-shirt does. And we need to understand, it's the value chain. Look, the ordinary Afghan is sick and tired of hearing about microcredit. It is important,

Ashraf Ghani: How to fix...

 wanted to have the right to sell the Chinese people drugs as a result of the opium wars this city many others like it were open to foreign trade with large areas effectively under

Christianity in China PIPE...

 What do we know about the country and the people that we pretend to protect, about the villages where the only one medicine to kill the pain and to stop the hunger is opium?

Monika Bulaj: The hidden...

 like all the best cities Hong Kong has a Soho as you enter Soho you're on Elgin Street named after an English Lord for his role in the opium wars in China where he

Singing from the...

 and a yokel gbit aya nee-chan she opium if we look after the ocean the ocean will look after us the world needs a new philosophy not a