How can I legally experience the high of opium just once in my life?

I always figured I would try this if I ever got to be 90 years old or so.

crack and crystal meth are not opiates, they are stimulants.

just go out and get some heroin and try it.

all for the experience, no matter what.

LEGALLY though – go to a methadone clinic and fill out the forms there

Go for some surgery or something and get a prescription for oxycotin. That’s how I did this. One pill is all it takes! I got mine when I got my wisdom teeth out. Careful though, it’s very addictive

Break a leg in five places at once. Claim to be nauseated by every other substitute.

Oxycontin is opium? I didn’t know that. We’ve had some sitting in our medicine chest for years.

There is no legal way to do it in America and I think it would be very difficult illegally.

They will prescribe opiates if you are in enough pain but not opium. I would think that the heavy duty opiates like oxycontin, morphine, and dilaudid would be closest but still no cigar. You do not want to be in enough pain to need those. I spoke with someone who tried it back in the 80’s and she said that, while similar, the prescription opiates are not the same.

I have wondered what it was like as well but there is no way to know. I would also like to try real absinthe but, likewise, that is not going to happen.

I guess I could rinse the residue out of my 100+ year old Laudanum bottle (basically pure opium) but I am not going to ruin my bottle. I see that Laudanum is still available in the US for medical purposes but I have never heard of it being used.

Hmm, you can do what I did and get a kidney stone and show up at the emergency room in excurciating pain. I wouldn’t recommend it myself, though.

Go to Iraq or Afghanistan. They sell high quality, smokeable opium for pennies there.

Go to Chinese herbal shop(prefer the one in traditional market). Sometime some of them will have this kind of thing(they usually use Chinese opium in their traditional Chinese sucking pipe). Sometime you even need to bribe them.

@hudsong That was my first thought too. Go to a country where it is not illegal, or at least not enforced with the same severity as it is here in the states.

@Doctor_D I used to live near San Francisco and went to Chinatown regularly, knowing many shop owners.

Well, that was an opportunity wasted. I have been curious about it for awhile but not willing to do what is needed to try it like I am not willing to ruin my laudanum bottle (it is difficult to find one with residue and the original cork… rotted in). My curiosity is nowhere near that great.

I imagine that it would be similar to being stuffed with morphine. It doesn’t sound like an especially interesting way to pass the time.

Idk, but you will probably like this article.

@Arisztid Please be careful. Some people say that it could cause addiction.

Yes, I just returned from Taiwan 10 days ago.

Opium is quite available in southeast asia. Saw scads of poppy fields.

Vietnam has boatloads of the stuff as does Thailand.

I wouldn’t reccomend messing around in mainland China. lololol

My drug days are long gone, but opium smoking was part of my wild 70’s days. hahaha

@Doctor_D I have no intention of going through the effort of trying. It is nothing more than a curiosity. If I cared enough I would ruin my Laudanum bottle but I care more for the rare bottle than trying any drug. I do not know of any Chinatown near here and I would not care enough to make the effort to get “in” even if there was.

I have the same curiosity about absinthe but not enough to put forth the effort.

they sell absynthe in KY now, probably not as pure, but boy, it packs a light blow to the mind.
yes, the 70s and 80s were very free and since you write, you need to travel.
Go east, young man. and they shall call you jack.

take a travel buddy.

Tylenol 3’s I was on when I broke my ribs…they give you a high…

Get a kidney or gall stone. You will be on Demerol for days.

@skfinkel I always thought the Chinese practice of letting those who are too old to do much else hang out and smoke opium together was eminently civilized

@dr34m3r Heroin is highly refined opium. There are a number of psychoactives in opium removed by the refining process. I am not the least bit interested in trying it. It is an entirely different high, according to those who have tried both.

@hudsong Go to Iraq or Afghanistan and risk being unlucky enough to end up in one of their jails. I definitely don’t want to know bad enough to risk that. :-)

To all those who suggest getting kidney stones, breaking a leg or some such, I have osteoarthritis in my neck due to being rear-ended by a LA city bus. I was stopped at a light. THe bus driver was distracted and never even slowed down. It doesn’t hurt too often, but when it acts up, pinching one of the nerves exiting my cervix, the pain is excrutiating. I have a legal perscription to Oxycodone. It’s an artificial opiate, but nothing like opium. No visions or dream-world state—just blessed relief from the pain when it is needed.

well, back in the day of the Grateful Dead, it was around, along with the fake stuff. That was back in the 80s. i’m sorry you missed it.

do you really have a cervix??

@ETpro
It would be easier and safer to give your character some other unusual habit.

You might do better to seek out detailed descriptions by those who have smoked opium and described the experience. Get enough independent accounts and you will have all you need to describe anything you need for your own writing.

@jazmina88 Ha! That’s hilarious. The cervix is the neck of the uterus. I was thinking neck vertebra, which are called cervical vertebra; and I wrote cervix. What a brain fart.

Or you can grow some poppies. You’ll need quite a few.

It is legal in India and Turkey
It is popular, but not legal in Cambodia, China, Vietnam, and Taiwan

Order papaver somniferum poppy seeds online. They are opium poppies. They are not illegal unless you scratch the pods so they seep milk which dries to opium. It smells and taste just like the flowers when you smoke it You can also dry the pods and boil into a tea.

@buster So if you do not ever scratch the pods, but instead dry them and boil them into a tea, is that legal in the USA?

Are you likely to get a knock on the door from the DEA if you order the seeds online?

pods are legal but with any opiate you will vomit your brains out at first not worth it you are playing with fire – no dea will come looking for you but you shouldn’t do this take it from me ex herion addict

@trailsillustrated I thought the puking was only associated with mainlining heroin. I have never heard of people smoking opium in opium dens throwing up. Of course, the tea may taste so obnixous that it provokes retching.

@ETpro I’m that way with most kinds of tea, dunno ‘bout you.

You seem to show a morbid obedience to what’s legal, to the point that you’re afraid of having the pleasure of an experience that would always be yours alone anyway (the rest of the world wouldn’t get high along with you, so what harm would come to society from your isolated experience?). Trust me, what’s “legal” and what’s “right” don’t necessarily match up.

@JimmyDavid I know that what is legal and what is right aren’t synonymous. I choose to live within the law so long as it is not so odious I feel I must defy it. Had I been in the South during slavery, or Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, I would have had sufficient reason to do what’s right rather than what’s legal. Experiencing a yearned-for high is, to me, insufficient reason to defy authority.