- Confessions of an Opium-Eater
The prototypical addict autobiography, by Thomas DeQuincey, a classic of 19th Century literature.
- Awa
From the March 1889 edition of Overland Monthly comes this article, by F.L. Clarke, describing the use of "Awa" (Piper methysticum or "Kava Kava") in the Pacific islands.
- An Opium Den
Chapter 16 of Mrs. Frank Leslie's 1877 book "California: a Pleasure Trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate."
- Confessions of a Young Lady Laudanum-Drinker
Published anonymously in The Journal of Mental Sciences in January 1889. "Oh, why do you doctors not try prevention as well as cure! You have it in your power to warn those who take laudanum now and then for toothache or headache, what an insidious thing it is, and how easily they may become the victims of it. I began that way, and see what it came to."
- An Opium-Eater in America
Written by William Blair for The Knickerbocker in July, 1842. "I went; and so vividly did I feel my vitality - for in this state of delicious exhilaration even mere excitement seemed absolute elysium - that I could not resist the temptation to break out in the strangest vagaries, until my companions thought me deranged."
- An Opium Fantasy
A poem by Maria White Lowell. "Soft hangs the opiate in the brain / And lulling soothes the edge of pain / Till harshest sound, far off or near, / Sings floating in its mellow sphere"
- An Opium Dream
By Santa Louise Anderson, who experimented with her Chinese servant's opium kit, and wrote about her experiences in 1879.
- "Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise"
Written by Havelock Ellis, from The Contemporary Review, January, 1898. "The visions never resembled familiar objects; they were extremely definite, but yet always novel; they were constantly approaching, and yet constantly eluding, the semblance of known things. I would see thick, glorious fields of jewels, solitary or clustered, sometimes brilliant and sparkling, sometimes with a dull rich glow. Then they would spring up into flower-like shapes beneath my gaze, and then seem to turn into gorgeous butterfly forms or endless folds of glistening, iridescent, fibrous wings of wonderful insects."
Negro Cocaine "Fiends" New Southern Menace
From the New York Times, 8 February 1914.
- The Opium Problem
By Charles E. Terry and Mildred Pellens, 1928. Table of contents and chapter one available on-line.
- Report on the Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws of the United States
The Wickersham Commission report on Alcohol Prohibition in the United States, issued on 7 January 1931.
- An American's Palace Joint
By Allen S. Williams, chapter IV of The Demon of the Orient (1883). "To the neophyte the toned softness of the light, the graceful abandon of the forms, negligent and lapped in lazy luxury upon their Oriental couches, the silent footsteps of the attendants as they move to and fro in the misty air, the dulcet and beautifully modulated tones in which the fiends murmur, all creep upon the mind like a vision from another world, and the imagination, reeking with the seductive fumes, yields itself up helplessly to the beatitude of the hour."
- How the Opium Habit is Acquired
By Virgil G. Eaton, from The Popular Science Monthly, September 1888. "A whole opium 'lay-out,' including pipe, fork, lamp, and spoon, can now be had for less than five dollars. This affords a chance for those who have acquired the habit to follow their desires in private, without having to reveal their secret to anyone."
- An Enterprising Turk: He Travels Many Miles to Find His Occupation Gone
From the New York Times, 1 July 1890. Details an unsuccessful attempt to make a mint selling cut opium in New York.
- San Francisco Opium Joints
From The Review of Reviews, June 1892. "Nor is it only the Chinese who use the demoralizing drug. The vice is spreading among Americans to a serious extent."
- The Opium Industry in America
By C.F. Holder for Scientific American (1898). "The difficulty of conviction lies in the universality of the habit, as it pervades the home and business. Wherever the Chinese are found there will be the odor of opium. They smoke it as Americans do tobacco."
- The Opium Monopoly
A book by Ellen N. LaMotte (1920).
