1 00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:07,400 This is the River Clyde in Glasgow. 2 00:00:09,880 --> 00:00:15,280 250 years ago, this was one of Britain's great trading centres. 3 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:18,360 It was the hub of a huge empire 4 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:22,320 that stretched from the Caribbean to China. 5 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:26,160 An empire founded on trade 6 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:30,160 in which simple plants were transformed by human labour 7 00:00:30,160 --> 00:00:33,720 to become hugely profitable global commodities. 8 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:40,240 The trade in sugar... 9 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:43,160 tobacco... 10 00:00:43,160 --> 00:00:45,160 opium... 11 00:00:45,160 --> 00:00:46,400 and whisky... 12 00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:51,240 transformed our society, our bodies and our minds. 13 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:56,400 Over the centuries, we've learned to love these products. 14 00:00:56,400 --> 00:00:59,920 Their smell, their taste, the effect they've had on us. 15 00:00:59,920 --> 00:01:02,480 They've become increasingly guilty pleasures... 16 00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:06,600 ..which are still with us, still part of us. 17 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:12,640 Today, millions of us can't do without at least some of them. 18 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:15,080 So... 19 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:17,160 how did we become so hooked? 20 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:22,960 'The answer will take me on a journey across the world...' 21 00:01:22,960 --> 00:01:25,840 Oh, my God! That's powerful. 22 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:30,120 '..and inside our minds and bodies too...' Bye! 23 00:01:31,320 --> 00:01:33,200 HE SNIFFS 24 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:35,200 HE LAUGHS 25 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:36,840 Gosh, that's good, isn't it? 26 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:41,080 ..in the pursuit of pleasure. 27 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:03,840 Today, in one form or another, we've all become users of opium. 28 00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:08,000 Is that a contraction? We're going to wait until that has passed. 29 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:10,280 SHE GASPS 30 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:14,840 We're going to put in the epidural drugs. 31 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:17,560 It's going to take 15 minutes once I have put the medicines in 32 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:19,400 for them to start working. 33 00:02:19,400 --> 00:02:22,240 Opium and its derivative cousins, like morphine, 34 00:02:22,240 --> 00:02:24,600 brings pain relief to millions of patients, 35 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:28,040 and are some of the most widely used drugs on earth. 36 00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:35,600 I'm going to squirt in the first dose of the good medicine. 37 00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:40,400 These opium-derived medicines can be vital when lives hit crisis, 38 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:44,200 approach their end, or even as they begin. 39 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:46,160 What do the contractions feel like now? 40 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:48,480 I cannot feel anything. 41 00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:50,880 And do you have any pain? No. Fantastic. 42 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:51,920 I'm OK. 43 00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:53,160 SHE GIGGLES 44 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:59,000 This is the birthing centre at St Thomas's Hospital in London. 45 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,280 Here, anaesthetist Dr Ben Fitzwilliam 46 00:03:02,280 --> 00:03:05,960 is going take me through the arsenal of opiate-based drugs 47 00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:07,840 he relies on every day. 48 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:11,240 So, Brian, we're very lucky 49 00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:13,320 to have such a wide range of opioid drugs here. 50 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:14,560 We've got morphine, 51 00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:17,120 perhaps the gold standard by which others are measured, 52 00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:18,680 because it's so widely used. 53 00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:21,320 We've got codeine-containing medicine here, 54 00:03:21,320 --> 00:03:25,880 diamorphine here, which is heroin, which is derived from morphine, 55 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:28,640 a very potent opioid 56 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:32,480 that we use frequently in spinal and epidural anaesthesia. 57 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:35,920 In the hospital setting, we use all these opioids very frequently. 58 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:38,920 Because you can monitor it very carefully in this situation. Yes. 59 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:41,480 Because patients ultimately could become addicted. 60 00:03:43,240 --> 00:03:45,560 And that's the problem. 61 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:48,040 While opium-derived drugs like heroin 62 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:51,240 have the extraordinary power to ease suffering, 63 00:03:51,240 --> 00:03:54,120 they also have a powerful dark side. 64 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:07,560 'For me, I'm all too aware of how opium can destroy lives. 65 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:11,400 'In my home country of Scotland, 66 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:14,560 'we are plagued with 50,000 heroin addicts. 67 00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:19,560 'And at the root of this addiction is a simple plant - 68 00:04:19,560 --> 00:04:22,040 'the papaver somniferum - 69 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:23,680 'opium poppy.' 70 00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:32,240 The seeds of this modern-day addiction 71 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:34,920 were planted way back in the 18th century 72 00:04:34,920 --> 00:04:38,160 during the height of Britain's trading empire. 73 00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:47,080 Since then, man has been drawn to opium like moths to a flame. 74 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:53,600 It's fuelled the world's largest drug smuggling operation, 75 00:04:53,600 --> 00:04:56,160 earned vast fortunes, 76 00:04:56,160 --> 00:04:59,080 triggered war with China, 77 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:02,160 inspired medical breakthroughs, 78 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:06,520 and cast its spell on high and low society. 79 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:12,040 Opium is like nothing else on earth. 80 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:15,560 Both saviour and destroyer. 81 00:05:16,840 --> 00:05:19,200 This is the story of how Britain unleashed 82 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:22,080 the most dangerous of addictions on the world, 83 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:26,360 and how the consequences still haunt us today. 84 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:37,400 At the heart of this tale is an ordinary plant. 85 00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:39,680 Papaver somniferum. 86 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:42,120 The poppy. 87 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,200 'Opium is contained within the head of the flower. 88 00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:49,880 'It can be found in fields and hedgerows 89 00:05:49,880 --> 00:05:52,320 'in all four corners of the world.' 90 00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:59,600 Its narcotic powers have been exploited for thousands of years. 91 00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:08,320 There's evidence that papaver somniferum 92 00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:12,200 may have been cultivated as long ago as 4,000 BC 93 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:16,480 in the cradle of civilisation itself - Mesopotamia. 94 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:18,800 SNIFFS Mmm.... 95 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:21,920 In the early written records, 96 00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:24,560 the Sumerians referred to a plant they called "hul gil" - 97 00:06:24,560 --> 00:06:28,240 "the plant of joy." 98 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:33,400 In ancient Egypt, the Ebers Papyrus, an ancient medical text, 99 00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:36,960 recommends smearing opium on the nipples of nursing mothers 100 00:06:36,960 --> 00:06:40,800 to help small children sleep. 101 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:42,440 In the Odyssey, 102 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:46,440 Homer writes of those grieving for the relatives lost in Troy, 103 00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:49,560 and how Helen, the beautiful daughter of Zeus, 104 00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:51,520 pours a drug into the wine, 105 00:06:51,520 --> 00:06:54,240 "to lull all pain and anger 106 00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:57,200 "and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow." 107 00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:06,560 But one country would know nothing but pain and anger, 108 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:09,920 and would never forget the sorrow from opium. 109 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:14,200 China. 110 00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:29,520 What do they use the scorpions for? 111 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:31,960 To make soup or herbal drink. 112 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:37,640 Like today's city of Guangzhou, 113 00:07:37,640 --> 00:07:39,880 ancient China had a sophisticated knowledge 114 00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:42,800 of weird and wonderful medical cures. 115 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:46,760 So what does that do, the sea horse? 116 00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:51,360 It's good for aphrodisiac, and then you make soup out of it. 117 00:07:51,360 --> 00:07:53,640 Are they very popular, the sea horse? 118 00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:55,960 Er, yes, if you have that kind of problem, then the... 119 00:07:55,960 --> 00:07:57,240 HE LAUGHS 120 00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:03,080 For thousands of years, opium was commonly used as a medicine. 121 00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:04,680 But it was in the 15th century 122 00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:10,360 that smoking its mysterious vapours became a source of pleasure. 123 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:14,920 Used as an aphrodisiac to escape into blissful sexual oblivion. 124 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:20,600 HE SPEAKS CANTONESE 125 00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:22,800 You can see the carving, all of the carving. 126 00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:24,280 Oh...that is stunning. 127 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:26,920 This is ivory. 128 00:08:26,920 --> 00:08:29,120 This is ivory? Yeah, real ivory. 129 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:30,160 Wow. 130 00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:38,160 Beautiful antique opium smoking paraphernalia like this 131 00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:41,080 gives you an idea of how the Chinese temperament 132 00:08:41,080 --> 00:08:44,880 was once seduced by the timeless ritual and pleasures of the drug. 133 00:08:47,840 --> 00:08:49,240 What are these boxes here? 134 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:50,920 These are opium box, sir. 135 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:53,040 They put, er...opium here. 136 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:57,800 Ah, so that's... Sometimes they... carving the erotic picture here. 137 00:08:57,800 --> 00:09:00,280 Oh, erotic. Yeah. Ah... 138 00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:02,680 The sexy pictures. Yeah, sexy pictures, yes. 139 00:09:02,680 --> 00:09:03,840 Ooh... 140 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:05,640 Let me see if I have my glasses. 141 00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:08,000 This is not an erotic... Ah, this is not a sexy picture. 142 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:10,400 HE LAUGHS Well, I won't waste my time on it, then. 143 00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:15,760 Yet with China's age came wisdom. 144 00:09:17,320 --> 00:09:18,720 By the late 18th century, 145 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:21,160 they realised, for all opium's benefits, 146 00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:23,680 it was too addictive to be trifled with. 147 00:09:26,440 --> 00:09:30,560 In 1729, in the early days of British trade with China, 148 00:09:30,560 --> 00:09:34,520 the Emperor Yongzheng banned the sale, 149 00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:37,360 smoking and all trade in opium. 150 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:44,320 This would soon prove to be a huge problem for the British, 151 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:48,880 because we were quickly developing our own more genteel addiction. 152 00:09:54,480 --> 00:09:56,080 First thing... 153 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:59,800 warm all the teawares up, and all the tea cups. 154 00:10:01,680 --> 00:10:05,120 Then we can add the tea leaves, 155 00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:07,080 with a small bamboo stick. 156 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:11,000 Higher and higher... 157 00:10:13,480 --> 00:10:15,280 Is the ritual very important? 158 00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:19,160 People say it is like a kind of meditation, 159 00:10:19,160 --> 00:10:21,200 um...maybe it's kind of relaxing. 160 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:26,200 Thank you. You're welcome. 161 00:10:27,240 --> 00:10:28,480 Hope you like it. 162 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:29,960 Kan bei. 163 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:32,200 Kan bei. Thank you. 164 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:33,240 Tea - 165 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:35,800 the cup that cheers, but does not inebriate. 166 00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:42,520 By the end of the 18th century, the British were already leaders 167 00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:45,200 in the consumption of a nice cup of char, 168 00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:49,600 importing six million pounds of tea from China a year. 169 00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:52,200 Now, tea was one of those small daily luxuries 170 00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:54,640 which the British absolutely counted on, 171 00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:57,240 and Guangzhou, back then known as Canton, 172 00:10:57,240 --> 00:11:01,600 was the only place foreign traders could buy tea in China. 173 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:04,200 Mmm... 174 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:05,280 That's so good. 175 00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:06,320 Thank you. 176 00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:10,560 The problem was, 177 00:11:10,560 --> 00:11:12,880 over a 50-year period, 178 00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:17,840 we paid the Chinese £27 million in silver bullion, 179 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:22,600 the only currency they would accept in exchange for tea. 180 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:25,560 During that same period, the Brits managed to sell 181 00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:29,960 no more than £9 million worth of goods to the Chinese. 182 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:34,760 Our love of tea was sucking the silver 183 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:36,880 out of the British imperial economy. 184 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:40,960 Urgent action was needed. 185 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:45,280 So in 1793, with the blessing of His Majesty's Government, 186 00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:47,720 a trade delegation headed to Peking, 187 00:11:47,720 --> 00:11:52,400 and presented the 83-year-old emperor, Qianlong, 188 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:55,040 with our finest manufactured goods. 189 00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:56,800 Wedgwood pottery. 190 00:11:56,800 --> 00:11:58,800 Scientific instruments. 191 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:03,480 Woollen fabrics. 192 00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:07,920 Matches of sulphur. 193 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:12,800 Even French hot air balloons. 194 00:12:12,800 --> 00:12:15,160 The Chinese rejected them all. 195 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:21,440 This is what the emperor said in a letter to King George III. 196 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:23,880 "As your ambassador could see for himself, 197 00:12:23,880 --> 00:12:27,080 "we possess all things, and of the highest quality. 198 00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:31,200 "I set no value on strange and useless objects, 199 00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:36,400 "and have no use of your country's manufactures." 200 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:39,760 Basically, as far as the Chinese were concerned, 201 00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:42,640 Britain's fledgling industrial revolution 202 00:12:42,640 --> 00:12:47,960 had produced noting but a whole load of undesirable tat. 203 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:54,000 With tea rapidly becoming unaffordable, 204 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:57,320 it was now that Britain's recent conquest of Indian Bengal 205 00:12:57,320 --> 00:12:58,800 presented a solution. 206 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:04,600 One of the world's finest sources of opium. 207 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:14,200 With Britain spiralling into debt, something had to give, 208 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:18,680 and that something was respect for China's trade ban on opium. 209 00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:26,920 I'm close to the mouth of the River Pearl delta, 210 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,160 not far from Canton. 211 00:13:33,280 --> 00:13:35,440 I'm meeting Professor John Carroll, 212 00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:38,520 who's going to explain how, in the early 19th century, 213 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:43,120 the British East India Company began what would become the largest 214 00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:47,760 and most disgraceful drug-smuggling operation in history. 215 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:53,160 Let's open up this map and give you a better sense of the big picture, 216 00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:54,760 and then the local picture as well. 217 00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:57,880 Take some coins here. 218 00:13:57,880 --> 00:13:59,920 Put Britain here, 219 00:13:59,920 --> 00:14:02,120 put India here, 220 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:05,160 and then we'll put south China here. 221 00:14:05,160 --> 00:14:07,720 The British realised that, because there was so much opium 222 00:14:07,720 --> 00:14:10,800 produced right here on the east side of India, 223 00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:15,200 that selling opium, or smuggling opium, to China made sense. 224 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:17,880 So here they are, they're in the delta. Yes, right. 225 00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:19,600 And it's highly illegal. Right, right. 226 00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,040 In 1729, it becomes illegal, but how do they get round it? 227 00:14:22,040 --> 00:14:24,760 The product was sold to what were called country traders, 228 00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:28,120 or private traders, who would then carry it into China. 229 00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:30,320 These were private British traders. Yes, yes. 230 00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:32,840 What would happen is the ships would come from India, 231 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:35,640 they would come to the south China coast. 232 00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:38,960 It was also important to keep in mind, though, that Canton, 233 00:14:38,960 --> 00:14:43,800 today's Guangzhou, is a coastal area, lots of inlets and so on, 234 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:45,480 so it wasn't at all difficult 235 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:49,280 for the British to bring in the opium from India. 236 00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:52,320 They would then transfer the goods right here along the coast 237 00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:56,920 to smaller boats, sometimes known as scrambling dragons or fast crabs. 238 00:14:56,920 --> 00:14:59,840 Scrambling dragons and fast crabs? Fast crabs, yes. 239 00:14:59,840 --> 00:15:00,920 They were smaller boats 240 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,240 that could make it up the coast much, much more easily. 241 00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:04,800 And there was always somebody there 242 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,840 who was willing to help them bring in the drugs. 243 00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:12,520 I would say that trade, whether it's illegal or legal, 244 00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:15,240 requires a confluence of mutual interests. Right. 245 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:18,840 And there were people at all levels of Chinese society throughout China. 246 00:15:18,840 --> 00:15:20,480 So there's a lot of pragmatism. Yeah. 247 00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:22,920 A lot of pragmatism on all sides here. 248 00:15:22,920 --> 00:15:25,280 Nobody made any effort to hide this. 249 00:15:25,280 --> 00:15:28,400 but, I mean, it seems to me that, from an economic perspective, 250 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:31,800 this all made perfect sense. 251 00:15:31,800 --> 00:15:35,320 Opium is the one good that the British had to offer the Chinese 252 00:15:35,320 --> 00:15:37,480 that would make as much money as it did. 253 00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:44,400 Opium shipments were initially capped at 5,000 chests per year 254 00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:46,200 to keep the prices high. 255 00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:49,640 Tea and opium were now locked together 256 00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:51,640 in an intimate, economic embrace. 257 00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:05,960 I spent most of my early life 258 00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:09,160 avoiding contact with opiates in any form. 259 00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:13,400 It was only back in the eighties on a theatrical tour of India 260 00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:17,920 that I decided perhaps it was time, in a spirit of experimentation, 261 00:16:17,920 --> 00:16:20,040 to try opium for myself. 262 00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:26,640 As I was in India, I decided to embrace the culture 263 00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:30,880 and I decided to take myself to an opium den. 264 00:16:30,880 --> 00:16:33,440 And there was a very strict ritual about it. 265 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:36,320 The pipe was very much held directly over the lamp, 266 00:16:36,320 --> 00:16:38,840 unlike the Chinese style, which held it to the side, 267 00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:41,840 but the Indians held it directly over the lamp like that. 268 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:44,720 And it would heat, and you would take it in five breaths. 269 00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:48,480 So you went one, two, three, four... INHALES QUICKLY 270 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:53,320 ..and then on the fifth, you went... INHALES DEEPLY 271 00:16:53,320 --> 00:16:54,360 You held it... 272 00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:57,240 ..and then you released, 273 00:16:57,240 --> 00:16:59,800 and then you passed it to the next person. 274 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:03,360 The wallah would tease the opium with these long, thin needles, 275 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,640 tease it and then wind it into a tiny ball, 276 00:17:06,640 --> 00:17:10,720 and then he would bring it, hold it over the flame into the bowl. 277 00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:12,200 Also, 278 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:17,080 there was a guy who used to work your feet, he would massage you. 279 00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:19,920 So you'd suddenly find this guy at the end of the bench 280 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:23,520 where you were lying, he would suddenly start working on your feet. 281 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:25,640 But the whole thing was a real ritual, 282 00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:27,800 and you felt you were taking part in a ritual. 283 00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:32,040 I really felt very, erm... very at one with the world. 284 00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:36,200 I suppose I shouldn't be saying this on television, 285 00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:37,880 but it was a rather good feeling. 286 00:17:42,360 --> 00:17:45,800 GIRLS SHOUT 287 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:47,920 And I'm not the only Scot in China 288 00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:50,760 who's been interested in the delights of opium. 289 00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:55,920 In 1832, two Scotsmen, 290 00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:59,600 while sampling the pleasures of a Chinese brothel, met. 291 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:08,480 Far from home, these two kindred spirits hit it off. 292 00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:11,200 And they hatched a plan. 293 00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:19,080 The men in question were James Matheson and William Jardine. 294 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:21,800 The company they formed, Jardine Matheson, 295 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:26,520 was set to change Britain's fledgling trade in opium forever. 296 00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:32,920 In a rare, patriotic, but rather perverse moment, 297 00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:37,120 they decided to choose the saltire as their logo. 298 00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:42,360 Sentiment would play no further part in their business venture. 299 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:48,760 Drugs, after all, are about cold hard cash. 300 00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:59,280 Up until this point, under British law, 301 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:04,160 only the British East India Company were to allowed to trade with China. 302 00:19:04,160 --> 00:19:09,200 But in 1833, just one year after Jardine Matheson's union, 303 00:19:09,200 --> 00:19:11,760 the trading monopoly was scrapped. 304 00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:17,000 Adventurers and opportunists flooded to Canton like bees to a honey pot. 305 00:19:18,600 --> 00:19:21,320 Yet Jardine and Matheson were ahead of the game. 306 00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:26,000 The Scots had already set up shop outside the main city walls 307 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,640 in an area of Canton known as the Thirteen Factories. 308 00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:35,960 This was where one addiction was traded for another. 309 00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:39,160 Tea for opium. 310 00:19:40,560 --> 00:19:43,160 So, Professor Yang, this is the area where it all happened. 311 00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:45,640 This is where the famous Thirteen Factories were. 312 00:20:11,280 --> 00:20:13,160 Foreign traders were restricted 313 00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:17,160 to dealing only with special traders known as Ko Hong. 314 00:20:19,360 --> 00:20:23,440 Both sides were in on the lucrative opium racket. 315 00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:28,800 So how rich were people like these traders becoming? 316 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:30,200 Jardine Matheson. 317 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:33,080 How rich? SPEAKS MANDARIN 318 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,240 Very rich. Very rich, yes. HE LAUGHS 319 00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:54,800 To entice more users, 320 00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:58,480 Jardine Matheson even stooped to employing a priest 321 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:02,480 to distribute small opium packets with chapters of the Bible. 322 00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:05,400 GULPING 323 00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:10,680 By 1836, the number of opium chests arriving from India 324 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:14,560 had shot up sixfold to 30,000 a year. 325 00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:18,440 Jardine Matheson was responsible for about a quarter. 326 00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:22,200 That's 500 metric tonnes of contraband. 327 00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:24,920 China's smokers smoked for pleasure. 328 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:28,240 What could be wrong with supplying their growing demand? 329 00:21:32,840 --> 00:21:34,600 The officially forbidden trade 330 00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:37,640 was now the largest international commerce 331 00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:40,920 in any single commodity anywhere in the world. 332 00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:54,200 The reaction wasn't long in coming. 333 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:59,480 In 1839, Emperor Daoguang declared a war on drugs. 334 00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:04,480 And here in Humen, at the mouth of the River Pearl, 335 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:08,080 they have built an opium war museum, 336 00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:11,040 which tells quite a remarkable story. 337 00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,440 So these are the Thirteen Factories. 338 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:23,840 It's how it all started. 339 00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:29,040 The emperor ordered a series of drug raids on the western traders. 340 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:32,760 Here are our two heroes, 341 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:36,000 Mr William Jardine and Mr James Matheson, 342 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,440 described as "opium smugglers." 343 00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:40,760 Neat. 344 00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:48,440 The Chinese army locked the British traders in the Thirteen Factories, 345 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:50,280 and forced them to surrender. 346 00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:55,720 42,000 opium pipes, 347 00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,800 and 20,000 chests of opium, 348 00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:02,040 with a street value of £2 million sterling were seized. 349 00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:11,560 All of these pictures denote the scale of the suffering 350 00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:17,200 that people went through as a result of the overindulgence in opium. 351 00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,800 There's a mother crying with her child there, 352 00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:26,520 and a slightly emaciated figure who looks really quite far gone. 353 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:34,720 The confiscated opium was smashed up and dumped into massive pits. 354 00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:39,440 And on the 3rd of June, it was chemically burnt by adding lime. 355 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:43,600 Eventually, it was washed out to sea. 356 00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,440 Apparently, the stink was appalling. 357 00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,560 Outraged, William Jardine headed to London. 358 00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,920 He was satirised at the time as, "A Scotsman, one McDruggy, 359 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:02,080 "fresh from Canton, with a million from opium in each pocket, 360 00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:07,080 "denouncing corruption and bellowing, 'Free trade.' " 361 00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,600 It didn't take much persuasion for the British Government 362 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:10,920 to send the Royal Navy. 363 00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,520 After all, opium and tea were now responsible 364 00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:18,520 for one-sixth of the British Empire's income. 365 00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:22,360 ALL CHATTER IN CHINESE 366 00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,880 It was time to teach the Chinese aggressors 367 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,800 a friendly lesson in international cooperation... 368 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,880 at gunpoint, if need be. 369 00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,680 In June, 1840, the fleet arrived, 370 00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,360 not far from the museum here in Humen... 371 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:50,280 ..16 warships with 27 transports, carrying 4,000 men, 372 00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,800 not forgetting the Nemesis, 373 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,680 an iron-clad steamer, 374 00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:57,960 armed with the first weapon of mass destruction - 375 00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:03,280 a Congreve rocket launcher which dispatched exploding warheads. 376 00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:09,480 The Chinese had made preparations too. 377 00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:14,040 They'd spent years reinforcing the forts that guarded the mouth of the Pearl River 378 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:15,840 with batteries of cannon. 379 00:25:17,360 --> 00:25:21,000 They gave the forts imposing names as well - 380 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,680 the Fort of Eternal Peace, 381 00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:27,920 the Fort of Consolidated Security, 382 00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:33,440 the Forts of Suppressing, Overawing and Quelling Those From Afar. 383 00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:38,640 Big names, 384 00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,000 but the Chinese had no modern weaponry at all, 385 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:45,600 just beautifully-crafted cannons on immovable stands. 386 00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:51,560 Now, I've managed to destroy most of the Royal Navy, 387 00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:56,760 yet, in reality, sadly, in 1840, it couldn't have been more different. 388 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,200 The Chinese defences and their armada of war junks 389 00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:05,120 were blown away by the British gunboats 390 00:26:05,120 --> 00:26:07,680 in just five and a half hours. 391 00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,760 GUNS FIRE 392 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:14,320 And that was just the beginning. 393 00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,680 Over the next two years, the British headed north, 394 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:20,360 up the coast towards Shanghai. 395 00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,960 With Chinese troops doped up to their eyes, 396 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,040 the sheer firepower of the British was overwhelming. 397 00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:30,440 It was slaughter. 398 00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,080 The might of the Chinese Empire and the army that served it 399 00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:42,840 was on her knees. 400 00:26:47,120 --> 00:26:52,040 On the 29th of August, 1842, near the town of Nanking, 401 00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:56,240 on board the HMS Cornwall, gunboat diplomacy prevailed. 402 00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,960 The Chinese signed what historians would later call 403 00:26:59,960 --> 00:27:02,560 "the most unequal treaty". 404 00:27:04,120 --> 00:27:07,720 They agreed to open five ports to foreign trade, 405 00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,080 pay a crippling 21 million 406 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,440 in silver dollars to the British government... 407 00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,800 ..compensation for loss of opium earnings with interest, 408 00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:20,360 and, of course, the cost of the war. 409 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,800 And the prize of the Treaty of Nanking? 410 00:27:27,360 --> 00:27:28,720 Hong Kong Island. 411 00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:39,480 Gifted to the British, 412 00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:41,960 this was the perfect hub for Her Majesty's merchants 413 00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,920 to upscale the trade in opium with China. 414 00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:50,040 The floodgates were open. 415 00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:55,960 Hong Kong Island grew into one of the greatest commercial centres of all time, 416 00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,280 and all this blossomed... 417 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:00,920 from a cloud of opium smoke. 418 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,760 Even to this day, Jardine Matheson, 419 00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,360 now a multi-million pound multinational, 420 00:28:08,360 --> 00:28:10,880 is based here in the heart of city. 421 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,920 Its founders became the richest men in Scotland. 422 00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:19,440 The Times would later describe the Opium War 423 00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,520 as the most disgraceful war in our history. 424 00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,480 The British lost 69 men 425 00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:32,120 and killed between 20,000 and 25,000 Chinese. 426 00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,920 While the Chinese were counting the cost of opium addiction, 427 00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,600 we were counting the Emperor's silver, 428 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:56,320 sent back to the UK and publicly wheeled into the Bank of England. 429 00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,840 At the time of the Opium Wars, 430 00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,120 the British were culpably ignorant of the havoc 431 00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,000 they were creating in the brains of the Chinese people. 432 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:18,240 Today, modern science has given us a far deeper understanding 433 00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:19,880 of the power of opium. 434 00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,760 'I'm meeting Professor David Nutt, 435 00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,280 'former drugs advisor to the government. 436 00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,560 'He knows more than most about the dual personality of opium 437 00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,600 'and how its pain-relieving qualities are closely tied 438 00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:34,200 'to its addictive pleasure.' 439 00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:39,360 Now, here's a brain. 440 00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,680 So this is the brain stem and the spinal cord. 441 00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,960 You tread on a nail and the pain fibres send messages up to here. 442 00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,760 This is the part of the brain called the thalamus. 443 00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:51,840 And that's where pain is regulated. 444 00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,640 What opium does is it basically puts a block there 445 00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:58,080 to stop those pain fibres getting into the brain. 446 00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,360 But the suffering from pain 447 00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,520 comes more from this frontal part of the brain, 448 00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:04,560 and this is the part of the brain 449 00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:07,760 which engages you in all your emotional activities. 450 00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,440 We also now know that opium does dampen down that part of the brain, 451 00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:14,880 and part of that is why it's pleasurable, 452 00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:17,760 because it dampens down other miseries in your life. 453 00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,440 So, you know, you've got to pay tax 454 00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,520 or you've got to sort out your divorce, etc. 455 00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,680 So the actual pain of a tack in your foot 456 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,520 is equal to the tax that you also have to pay. 457 00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,920 Yes, in terms of your reaction to it, absolutely. Really? 458 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,160 It's all dealt with in this part of the brain called the anterior cingulate. 459 00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,960 So opium is a plant chemical, 460 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:45,520 which mimics a natural hormone in the brain we call endorphins. 461 00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,600 And endorphins are there to deal with pain, 462 00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:51,760 and, possibly, to give pleasure. 463 00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,960 But what opium does is it does what the natural substance does 464 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:57,320 but much better. 465 00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,440 So it really is good at taking away pain, 466 00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,360 which is why we use it as a painkiller, but, also, 467 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,560 it can give more pleasure than the natural substance. 468 00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:08,960 So we sometimes say it hijacks the natural system 469 00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:13,400 so that the person then doesn't feel normal responsiveness 470 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:14,960 unless they're taking opium. 471 00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:16,920 So that's why they become dependant on it. 472 00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,360 It's this ability of opium to aggressively barge in, 473 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:25,960 push the natural endorphins aside, 474 00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:31,800 and kidnap our pain and pleasure receptors that make it so dangerous. 475 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,080 The euphoric high that comes with taking opium 476 00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,960 is like nothing our brain has experienced before. 477 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,760 And that makes it irresistible. 478 00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,920 By the early 19th century, 479 00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,360 opium's dark spell wasn't just confined to the East. 480 00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:58,360 In Britain, the drug's delights 481 00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,840 were beginning to seduce the upper echelons of society. 482 00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,720 Then, on the 18th of August, 1821, 483 00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,680 subscribers to the London Magazine opened the latest edition 484 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:13,880 to discover an article entitled 485 00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,920 the Confessions Of An English Opium-Eater. 486 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:23,160 Doubtless, they read it with a nice cup of tea imported from China. 487 00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,440 The article was anonymous. 488 00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:27,960 In his article, which I have here, 489 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,200 the author asserted that not only was he an English opium-eater, 490 00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:32,920 but he was also one of many. 491 00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:37,520 He said he'd conducted an informal survey with London chemists, 492 00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,520 who told him that the number of amateur opium-eaters 493 00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:41,880 was actually immense. 494 00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:46,560 Within a few months, the author of this popular and outrageous text 495 00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:47,800 unmasked himself. 496 00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:49,760 He was... 497 00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,920 Thomas De Quincey, 498 00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,360 and he wrote it sitting up there in that very window. 499 00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,320 An impoverished English journalist, De Quincey was in his mid-30s. 500 00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:03,800 As the article revealed, like everyone in Britain, 501 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,040 he didn't eat his opium at all - he drank it, 502 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,320 in the form of a medicine known as laudanum. 503 00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,120 De Quincy recalls his first experience of opium 504 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,720 as an undergraduate at Oxford suffering from toothache. 505 00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,080 "In an hour, oh! Heavens! What a revulsion! 506 00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,320 "What a resurrection from the lower depths of the inner spirit! 507 00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,000 "What an apocalypse of the world within me. 508 00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,480 "That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes. 509 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,800 "This negative effect was swallowed up 510 00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:41,160 "in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. 511 00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,520 "Here was a panacea for all human woes. 512 00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,680 "Here is the secret of happiness." 513 00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:58,040 Confessions Of An Opium-Eater became a huge hit. Why? 514 00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:02,520 Because De Quincey was one of the first to describe both beautifully and seductively 515 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:06,200 the effects of the drug on the mind. 516 00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:10,880 He used to visit the opera here in Covent Garden while under the influence. 517 00:34:12,720 --> 00:34:16,000 He tells us how opium rendered the choruses sublime, 518 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:19,080 losing his sense of the passage of time. 519 00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,560 OPERATIC SINGING 520 00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:31,280 Byron, Shelly, Keats. 521 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:33,960 Because of its effect on the creative mind, 522 00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,600 opium soon became the drug of choice for many a writer. 523 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,720 Even De Quincey talks of fantastic imagery of the brain - 524 00:34:44,720 --> 00:34:48,960 cities and temples beyond the splendours of Babylon. 525 00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:53,400 But it was Samuel Taylor Coleridge that truly captured in words 526 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,960 the exotic world that opium painted on the mind. 527 00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,880 "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 528 00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,320 "A stately pleasure-dome decree 529 00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,520 "Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 530 00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,520 "Through caverns measureless to man 531 00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,280 "Down to a sunless sea. 532 00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,360 "So twice five miles of fertile ground 533 00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,120 "With walls and towers girdled round 534 00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,280 "Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 535 00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,440 "Through wood and dale the sacred river ran 536 00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,240 "Then reached the caverns measureless to man 537 00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:33,440 "And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean 538 00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:37,800 "And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 539 00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,120 "Ancestral voices prophesying war! 540 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:46,160 "A damsel with a dulcimer 541 00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,000 "In a vision once I saw 542 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:49,560 "It was an Abyssinian maid, 543 00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:51,280 "On her dulcimer she played, 544 00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:52,760 "Singing of Mount Abora. 545 00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:54,200 "Could I revive within me 546 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:55,640 "Her symphony and song 547 00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:57,840 "To such a deep delight 'twould win me 548 00:35:57,840 --> 00:35:59,920 "That with music loud and long 549 00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:02,000 "I would build that dome in air 550 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,720 "That sunny dome! Those caves of ice! 551 00:36:04,720 --> 00:36:07,240 "And all who heard them should see them there, 552 00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:11,440 "And all should cry, Beware! Beware!" 553 00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:17,840 While writers and poets were exploring the creative delights of opium, 554 00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:22,320 scientists were working to improve its medical potency. 555 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:27,320 They'd recently isolated opium's most active chemical - 556 00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:28,400 morphine. 557 00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:34,320 But it wasn't until 1851, here in Edinburgh, 558 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,360 that a brilliant Scottish invention 559 00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,200 would unleash morphine's medical potential. 560 00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:47,680 This in turn would revolutionise medicine 561 00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,360 and our addiction to the pleasures of opium. 562 00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,080 The invention was the hypodermic syringe. 563 00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:00,760 Its creator? Scottish doctor Alexander Wood. 564 00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:06,960 'And here at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, 565 00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,440 'they hold two of Wood's original syringes.' 566 00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:15,800 The one on the right is the one 567 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,320 that was used for the first injection, as far as we know. 568 00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:19,560 This one here. Yeah. 569 00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:21,480 How did the syringe work? 570 00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,320 Well, basically, what you've got is a cotton wool wad inside there, 571 00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:29,200 it's a forward and backward operation, much like a modern one, really. Right. 572 00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:31,640 And you can see there is a little screw there. 573 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:35,360 That needle screws onto the front end of the syringe there 574 00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,120 and then you've got a little... Plunger. 575 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:38,440 You've got a little plunger. 576 00:37:38,440 --> 00:37:40,120 So... Very delicate. 577 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:42,320 Yeah, it's very, very delicate. 578 00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,600 The needle was Woods' innovation? 579 00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,480 Attempts had been made to introduce things intravenously 580 00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:52,920 for a very long time by pushing it through the skin using a lance, 581 00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:57,600 but it's the marrying, really, of the needle and the syringe unit itself. 582 00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,360 He recognised that you could use that locally as well as generally. 583 00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,080 So it went into the bloodstream. 584 00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,120 Yeah. That marriage between use of morphine 585 00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:09,720 and the syringe was quite powerful. 586 00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:17,280 Morphine was around ten times more potent than raw opium, 587 00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:19,040 and, with Woods' syringe, 588 00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:23,680 it made it possible to deliver huge quantities of the drug to the brain. 589 00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:27,880 With the belief that injecting morphine removed its habit-forming properties, 590 00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:32,600 by the 1860s, its use by doctors swept the country. 591 00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,800 Quick to teach their patients how to inject themselves, 592 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:43,040 it wasn't long before the upper classes in Paris and London 593 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,840 turned to morphine for pleasure. 594 00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:50,480 Mike? Brian. Hi. How are you? 595 00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:52,960 Good, thanks. Good to see you. 596 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,880 Ah! Oh, here we are. High tea, how lovely. Yeah. 597 00:38:55,880 --> 00:39:00,800 'Author Mike Jay is a leading expert in 19th-century high society.' 598 00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:06,760 I gather that, going to the opera, 599 00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,360 it was a fairly common habit to take some opium 600 00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,160 in order to enhance the whole experience, is that right? 601 00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,800 Yes, it was quite a common sight for women, particularly, 602 00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,440 at the opera and theatre. 603 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:21,480 So is this something they would do, like have a cigarette outside nowadays, 604 00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,800 they would go off in a quiet corner somewhere? 605 00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,680 Or was it something they did before they actually went to the opera? 606 00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:30,480 Of course, women in those days weren't allowed to smoke cigarettes 607 00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,160 and they weren't allowed to drink... 608 00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:35,880 Oh! ..so it was their only option in public. 609 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,960 It would be something they'd do discreetly under the table. Right. 610 00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:44,200 So ladies would take out their accoutrements... That's right. 611 00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,040 I mean, here's a really beautiful example you can see. 612 00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:49,800 A lovely silver engraved case. 613 00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,240 And inside here you've got... My goodness. 614 00:39:52,240 --> 00:39:56,480 That's the vial that would have contained the morphine. 615 00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:01,160 There's the syringe and plunger and a couple of little needles here. 616 00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,400 That's rather beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, it's gorgeous, isn't it? 617 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,320 This kind of kit, obviously, was expensive, 618 00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,160 and people used it as a kind of display of wealth. 619 00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,920 That's a hell of a long needle. It is, isn't it? 620 00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:14,720 How far in would that go? 621 00:40:14,720 --> 00:40:16,600 It was all intramuscular injection, 622 00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,280 so there was no searching for a vein or anything. 623 00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:21,320 Once you had it set up like that, 624 00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:24,400 you could simply pop it into your leg under the table 625 00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,720 and nobody would notice. Gosh. 626 00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,760 While the upper crust were feeling even more elevated than normal, 627 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,160 the working class were experiencing their own opium boon. 628 00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,920 Working mothers, factory and farm workers, 629 00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,960 even soldiers, were switching from gin, rum 630 00:40:59,960 --> 00:41:04,880 and home-distilled spirits to opium in a vast array of preparations. 631 00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,320 And Mike's taken me to a highly-secure vault, 632 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,320 a secret location, where they still hold everything 633 00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,440 from opium drinks and pills to sweets - 634 00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:20,160 all now Class A contraband. 635 00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:24,760 This is actually a lump of opium. 636 00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:29,440 That was... You're kidding me. This is? Yes. 637 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,560 That's a heck of a big poppy, isn't it? 638 00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,240 'He's going to reveal the shocking truth 639 00:41:35,240 --> 00:41:40,200 'about just how widely spread opium's use had become 640 00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,680 'by the mid-1850s.' 641 00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:44,960 Here's opium in the form of sweets. 642 00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,800 They're like a kind of sugary cough sweet. 643 00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:49,560 Opiate confectionery. 644 00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:51,960 There's a huge range of opium preparations made, 645 00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:54,120 particularly for children, like these ones here. 646 00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,200 This is Mrs Winslow's Syrup 647 00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,800 and the Atkinson's Infants' Preservative. 648 00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:04,640 Infants' Preservative? Yeah, I mean, think of it as the Calpol of its day. 649 00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,080 It was very effective against coughs, 650 00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,040 that's what it was mostly marketed for, 651 00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:13,120 but also people would dose up their children and, you know, 652 00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:15,440 make them more docile and quieter. 653 00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,600 There were frequent scandals when childminders, 654 00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:21,240 who had enormous numbers of screaming children to deal with, 655 00:42:21,240 --> 00:42:23,240 some of them, if they were unscrupulous, 656 00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:26,480 would simply dose all the kids up with opium and keep them asleep all day. 657 00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:28,840 This is the poster for what we have here, 658 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,680 which is Mrs Winslow's Soothing Syrup, 659 00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:34,520 and you can see this is specifically for children teething. 660 00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,960 Ah. There's suitably stoned children dealing with their teething troubles. That's right. 661 00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:40,400 It's packaged for children, 662 00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,320 but it's the same as the laudanum that the men would take after a day's work. It's the same. 663 00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:50,080 It seems now outrageous, this stuff, but then it was perfectly normal. 664 00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,960 In one of Thomas De Quincey's informal surveys, 665 00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:02,000 he was told by a local chemist in the cotton spinning area of Lancashire 666 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,160 that, on a Saturday night, the demand for opium was immense. 667 00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,120 Laudanum was cheaper than alcohol, 668 00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:15,560 cheap enough for the lowest paid worker to escape their harsh, mundane lives. 669 00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:21,720 This book is by the 19th-century novelist Charles Kinsley, 670 00:43:21,720 --> 00:43:24,520 and it takes us into the world of working folk. 671 00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,120 And I've just found this very telling verse 672 00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:31,960 which reveals just how common opium use was. 673 00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:35,400 "Yoo goo into druggist's shop o' market-day, into Cambridge, 674 00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:38,080 "and you'll see the little boxes, doozens and doozens, 675 00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:40,840 "a'ready on the counter. Oh, ho-ho! 676 00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:44,160 "Well, it keeps women-folk quiet, it do, 677 00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:46,520 "and it's mortal good against pains. 678 00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,080 "But what is it? 679 00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:51,680 "Opium, bor' alive, opium." 680 00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,160 Between 1825 and 1850, 681 00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,160 imports of opium to Britain rose 400%. 682 00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:07,760 It was sold as a treatment for almost every medical ailment, 683 00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:10,120 but, above all, for pleasure. 684 00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,120 And in the 1870s, the first discreet clinics appeared 685 00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,680 for so-called morphinomaniacs - 686 00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:21,160 users who were unable to give up the faster, more intense high 687 00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:23,320 from injecting morphine. 688 00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:26,240 The bitter irony was, 689 00:44:26,240 --> 00:44:29,640 the more that people took the drug in the pursuit of pleasure, 690 00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:33,960 the more it was killing their naturally ability to feel it - 691 00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:38,600 something that today's science is only just starting to unravel. 692 00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,800 I've come to the University of Dundee. 693 00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,120 Here, a pioneering study 694 00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:53,640 is unlocking the secrets of what causes addiction. 695 00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,040 So where do I go? 696 00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,880 'They're looking deep inside the brains of opiate addicts 697 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:02,880 'and comparing them with non-addicts, 698 00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:05,760 'which is where I'm helping out.' 699 00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:07,120 Bye. 700 00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,920 'While in the MRI scanner, participants play a simple game 701 00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,360 'to test feelings of pleasure through reward.' 702 00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,360 Are you OK there, Brian? Yes, I'm fine. 703 00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,280 Okeydoke. It's just about to start, just in ten seconds. 704 00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:27,880 'The aim is to understand how opiate drugs 705 00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:29,600 'take over the brains of addicts 706 00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,720 'and their ability to experience the normal pleasures of everyday life.' 707 00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:37,240 If you wake up in the morning 708 00:45:37,240 --> 00:45:42,480 and the sky is blue, which is usually not very common in Dundee... 709 00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:43,920 you feel good about yourself 710 00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:47,720 and you feel good about the fact that you had a good breakfast. 711 00:45:47,720 --> 00:45:51,240 Those are natural rewards, those are the bits and pieces that keep us going. 712 00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:56,440 Now, imagine the drugs hijacking that reward system. 713 00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,720 Remarkably, the study is already revealing 714 00:46:00,720 --> 00:46:03,240 that, even when addicts are clean, 715 00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:08,080 this stranglehold over the brain's pleasure system remains in place. 716 00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:10,120 These are the areas of the brain where, 717 00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,640 if you have a natural reward or you win something 718 00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:16,200 or you feel good about yourself, it tends to light up. 719 00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,040 What you notice straightaway 720 00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,080 is that people with a history of substance misuse 721 00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:25,400 tend to have a slightly less active... 722 00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:26,560 Considerably less. 723 00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:30,000 Considerably less. What that is telling us 724 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:34,840 is they are not able to appreciate or experience natural rewards. 725 00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,920 The brains of addicts are so drastically rewired 726 00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:41,680 that it's difficult for them to experience pleasure 727 00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:46,600 without opiate drugs. This is why addiction is a lifelong problem. 728 00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:51,280 And back in late 19th-century Britain, the price of pleasure 729 00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:55,240 from opium's dark side was becoming a serious public concern. 730 00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:03,840 It was then that the search began for a miracle drug 731 00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:07,440 that had all the pain-killing properties of morphine and opium, 732 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:09,360 but without the addiction. 733 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:13,600 In 1874, at St Mary's Hospital, London, 734 00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:18,080 chemist Alder Wright attempted to modify morphine. 735 00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:23,440 His experiment was simple. 736 00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,000 He took morphine and added acetic acid. 737 00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:34,240 This liquid he then heated to 85 degrees for several hours. 738 00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:39,280 Next, he added ether to dissolve whatever he had made. 739 00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:45,760 After a few more chemical steps... 740 00:47:47,720 --> 00:47:49,960 ..which we can't reveal here, 741 00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:53,240 a substance precipitated out as flakes. 742 00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:58,080 Yet Wright didn't realise the importance of what he had made 743 00:47:58,080 --> 00:47:59,960 because of his testing methods. 744 00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:07,800 Wright gave some of this stuff to his dog to test it out 745 00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:11,320 and he must have given the dog far too much 746 00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:15,040 because the dog became very sick and vomited 747 00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:17,720 and so Wright sort of thought, "Well..." 748 00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:20,040 Was it the favourite family dog? 749 00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:24,200 That I don't know, but the dog sure got sick. 750 00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:27,640 And so he wrote up the experiment 751 00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,200 but he put the substance aside and didn't study it again. 752 00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:32,920 However, some 15 or so years later, 753 00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,000 a chemist working from a German company 754 00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:37,640 called Farbenfabriken Friedrich Bayer 755 00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:41,280 discovered Wright's description of his synthesis 756 00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:44,200 in the published literature and they tried it for themselves. 757 00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:48,680 So, as many good 19th-century chemists did... 758 00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:52,880 ..they tasted it to see what it did. 759 00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:57,960 And one of them said that it made him feel absolutely wonderful 760 00:48:57,960 --> 00:48:59,920 and they were going to call it wunderlich, 761 00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:01,480 the German for "wonderful". 762 00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,280 But another of his colleagues who had taken it said, 763 00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,680 "This makes me feel heroisch," 764 00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:09,400 "heroic", 765 00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:11,560 and so they called it heroin. 766 00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:13,600 Ha! 767 00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:18,120 And that's what we still call it today. 768 00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,200 Oh, my goodness. And if you look at some of the old formulations, 769 00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:25,120 here are some tablets that Bayer issued, 770 00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:27,960 and this would have been used to relieve pain, 771 00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,280 but it was also used to treat cough. 772 00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:36,000 This is an advert for stuff they called Glykeron or Glyco-Heroin. 773 00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:40,160 The adult dose, it says, is one teaspoonful every two hours. 774 00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:44,200 For children of ten years or more, the dose is from one-quarter 775 00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:46,800 to one-half of a teaspoonful. 776 00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:50,840 And for children of three years or more, five to ten drops. 777 00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,440 So you can see that this was being marketed 778 00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,280 for a wide range of individuals, young and old. 779 00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:01,560 Bayer stated the new drug, 780 00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,480 which was five times more potent than morphine, 781 00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:07,160 had been cleared of all addictive properties. 782 00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,640 Whether for medical or recreation use, 783 00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:15,760 heroin medicines were sold in millions over the counter 784 00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,880 with little regulation in the East or West. 785 00:50:21,240 --> 00:50:23,400 And while heroin was thought to be safe, 786 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,840 one group of Western crusaders started to raise alarm bells 787 00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,000 about the addictive nature of opium. 788 00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,040 The Christian missionaries 789 00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:35,240 had documented the first real research from China, 790 00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:38,160 a country the British were now flooding 791 00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:41,200 with over 100,000 chests of opium a year. 792 00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:47,400 The World Missionary Conference, gathered here in Edinburgh in 1910, 793 00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:51,080 lobbied for the worldwide restriction of the drug. 794 00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,480 What kind of evidence were the missionaries bringing back? 795 00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,920 The missionaries were very instrumental 796 00:50:59,920 --> 00:51:03,320 in bringing back information, detailed information, 797 00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:07,200 about addiction and the destructive effects of addiction. 798 00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:12,160 For example, a man with three wives 799 00:51:12,160 --> 00:51:16,200 could sell both wives and children in order to get his hands on opium. 800 00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:18,640 Selling his wife for opium? Yes. 801 00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,720 Selling his entire house. So it's bringing down families. 802 00:51:22,720 --> 00:51:28,280 It's destroying the fabric, the very fabric, of Chinese society. 803 00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,680 And it went right down through society, it percolated all the way down...? 804 00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:34,120 Yes, from the elite to... We have a saying - 805 00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:37,480 "From the Emperor's dowager to the coolies on the street, 806 00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:39,520 "from women to children." 807 00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:45,000 Historians estimate about 13 to 14 million of Chinese people 808 00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:47,480 were smoking, were addicted, to opium. 809 00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,400 In fact, China was dying. 810 00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:54,000 So how did the missionaries treat the addicts in China? 811 00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:57,360 Many of them carried morphine pills, 812 00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:02,160 and later, heroin, to China in order to cure the addicts. 813 00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:05,120 So... How would you cure the addicts with...? 814 00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:09,560 You say you replace opium smoking with a pill 815 00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:14,360 and this pill would help you to reduce your appetite for opium. 816 00:52:14,360 --> 00:52:17,920 Ad the pill is morphine in the beginning and then it was heroin, so... 817 00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:21,400 Which is also addictive. Exactly. And they both came from opium. 818 00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:27,480 So this is really ironic. It's so cruel. It is. It is. 819 00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,600 These pills, what were they called? Jesus pills. 820 00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:32,000 BOTH: Jesus pills. 821 00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,280 Because they came from the missionaries. Yes. 822 00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:37,640 Jesus loves you and therefore he would like you to have this little pill... 823 00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:40,000 And that will get rid of your opium addiction. 824 00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:46,760 Even though the missionaries were sublimely ignorant 825 00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:49,400 of the devastating effect of heroin on addicts, 826 00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:53,280 their continued pressure eventually forced the British government 827 00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:57,560 to cease all opium trade with China by 1918. 828 00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:04,120 'But China has not forgotten.' 829 00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,320 I mean, I didn't know anything about the Opium Wars. 830 00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:09,200 I never learned it in school, nobody taught me about the Opium Wars. 831 00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,400 In China, of course, it's very different. Mm-hm. 832 00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,400 Textbooks from elementary school to middle school to high school 833 00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:17,120 to university highlight the wrongdoings 834 00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:18,720 of the so-called imperialists. 835 00:53:18,720 --> 00:53:23,880 Students will be led to the site where the Opium War took place. 836 00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:28,080 It has become part of what they call the patriarchal education programme 837 00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,240 to educate Chinese youth like me 838 00:53:31,240 --> 00:53:35,160 so that we remember what you had done to us. 839 00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:38,680 By the beginning of the 20th century, 840 00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:43,280 China had finally rid itself of the drug cartels, 841 00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:46,200 and in the UK, opium was banned, 842 00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:52,520 but, ironically, the very drug invented to cure opium addiction - 843 00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:56,360 heroin - would, by the late 20th century, 844 00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:59,320 create a whole new crisis, but this time, 845 00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,520 it would be on the streets of Great Britain. 846 00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:07,000 Perhaps a case of what goes around comes around. 847 00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,720 In my home town of Dundee, 848 00:54:10,720 --> 00:54:15,560 we now have over 3% of people hooked on drugs like heroin. 849 00:54:17,240 --> 00:54:21,280 Indicative of a national problem, it's estimated 850 00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:24,960 the total economic and social cost of drug abuse in Scotland 851 00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:28,160 is £3.5 billion a year. 852 00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,800 Legislation simply hasn't solved the problem. 853 00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:37,520 The number of opiate addicts in Scotland are at an all-time high. 854 00:54:38,680 --> 00:54:41,760 So can science provide answer? 855 00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:44,880 Enter neurobiologist Tim Hales. 856 00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:46,160 OK, that looks good. 857 00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,440 In Dundee, Tim's studying the effects of opiates 858 00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:51,600 on the brain at a cellular level. 859 00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:56,440 A recent breakthrough in the study of opium receptors may hold the key. 860 00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:02,760 What's new is we now, in 2012, 861 00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,480 have a molecular model of the receptor 862 00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:10,200 to which morphine and heroin interact. 863 00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:14,360 That's a little bit like a car mechanic having a workshop manual for a car. 864 00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,520 And this is what we have here? Is that...? 865 00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:19,880 So this is a structural model of the opiate receptor. 866 00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,080 Part of the problem is that this receptor 867 00:55:22,080 --> 00:55:24,320 that is responsible for the actions of opiates 868 00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:27,760 is responsible for both the positive and the negative effects of opiates. 869 00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:30,400 So what we've got to try and do is figure out 870 00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:34,520 how does that receptor interact with different pathways in the brain 871 00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:36,160 to cause addiction... Right. 872 00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:39,120 ..and how does the receptor interact with pathways in the brain 873 00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:41,560 that are responsible for the painkilling effects? 874 00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:46,200 The idea would be to try and design drugs that are pain-killing 875 00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:48,000 but not addictive. 876 00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,520 Over the last 200 years, 877 00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:02,760 opium's relationship with man has forged an incredibly dramatic story. 878 00:56:07,240 --> 00:56:09,760 On the one hand, as an object of commerce, 879 00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:12,600 the illicit trade and exploitation of opium 880 00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:15,360 has created dubious untold wealth 881 00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,120 for a succession of predatory opportunists... 882 00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:23,680 ..created at the expense and destabilisation of whole societies. 883 00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:34,360 On the other hand, opium remains a remarkable drug 884 00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:36,040 and, when controlled with care, 885 00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:39,440 it allows doctors to ease so much suffering, 886 00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:44,280 from our dying breath to the birth of a new life. 887 00:56:47,200 --> 00:56:52,520 But for this little soul, only time will tell if advances in science 888 00:56:52,520 --> 00:56:56,680 will create a pain-free world without addiction, 889 00:56:56,680 --> 00:57:02,720 a world where opiates really are the milk of human kindness. 890 00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:20,200 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd