31 replies to this topic

[Lady of the Dawn Beauty]

Some guy on this forum (in GOT sp. section) mention that he means that Poppy Milk was kind of opium or heroine.
Discusion was about flashbacks and he mention that TOJ could be show when Maester Pycelle bring Ned an opium. But, he think poppy milk was opium, but what if it really was opium or heroine and not poppy milk.

[Manakhkubar]

Lady Lyanna of Love, on 21 January 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

Some guy on this forum (in GOT sp. section) mention that he means that Poppy Milk was kind of opium or heroine.
Discusion was about flashbacks and he mention that TOJ could be show when Maester Pycelle bring Ned an opium. But, he think poppy milk was opium, but what if it really was opium or heroine and not poppy milk.

I'm under the impression that opium is basically poppy milk of a certain poppy type. On earth, that is. And I just assumed it is about the same in Westeros.

[Septic Septon]

The name suggests it but there is no evidence of addiction to it (the closest think would be Gregor, but he is also in genuine pain) or recreational use, or hedge maesters peddling it cut with goat milk in the mean streets of Flea Bottom. So it is not a one-to-one equivalence.

[mummer]

Its effects sound exactly like an opium-based drug. They all do pretty much the same thing, differing only in potency, how they're administered, and sometimes side effects. Opium is the solid poppy extract, which can be eaten or smoked. Heroin is a chemical derivative of morphine, which is a chemical derivative of opium. Tincture of opium, or laudanum, is a liquid preparation of opium dissolved in alcohol - and when added to water, it turns milky.

So unless Martin is using "poppy" to mean something totally different than poppies on Earth, it's tincture of opium.

Septic Septon: Whether the drug is addictive or not has nothing to do with Gregor being in pain. Physical tolerance happens the same way regardless of what you're taking the drug for, and Gregor clearly does have a tolerance - Qyburn says that he has to take huge amounts of it now for the same headaches he's always had. Still, it's somewhat harder to develop a tolerance to laudanum than to smoking opium or injecting heroin, just because it's not as strong and doesn't have such a rapid onset and crash. (I'm a little surprised that Gregor didn't just smoke opium, but maybe the liquid is easier for him to get, or maybe Martin just didn't feel like getting into an explanation of that.)

As for recreational use and illicit trade - there are plenty of aspects of life that don't show up in the books, but that's no reason to assume they don't happen. It may be that abuse of laudanum is just not considered that big a deal; on Earth, it was sold over the counter until the 20th century, and it was very very very popular. And there's no need for "hedge maesters" - if you can grow poppies, you can produce opium very easily, though not necessarily of the best quality. (No, I don't do this, but I knew someone who did.)

Edited by mummer, 21 January 2011 - 07:10 PM.

[Ahmrogar]

mummer, on 21 January 2011 - 06:52 PM, said:

Its effects sound exactly like an opium-based drug. They all do pretty much the same thing, differing only in potency, how they're administered, and sometimes side effects. Opium is the solid poppy extract, which can be eaten or smoked. Heroin is a chemical derivative of morphine, which is a chemical derivative of opium. Tincture of opium, or laudanum, is a liquid preparation of opium dissolved in alcohol - and when added to water, it turns milky.

So unless Martin is using "poppy" to mean something totally different than poppies on Earth, it's tincture of opium.

Septic Septon: Whether the drug is addictive or not has nothing to do with Gregor being in pain. Physical tolerance happens the same way regardless of what you're taking the drug for, and Gregor clearly does have a tolerance - Qyburn says that he has to take huge amounts of it now for the same headaches he's always had. Still, it's somewhat harder to develop a tolerance to laudanum than to smoking opium or injecting heroin, just because it's not as strong and doesn't have such a rapid onset and crash. (I'm a little surprised that Gregor didn't just smoke opium, but maybe the liquid is easier for him to get, or maybe Martin just didn't feel like getting into an explanation of that.)

As for recreational use and illicit trade - there are plenty of aspects of life that don't show up in the books, but that's no reason to assume they don't happen. It may be that abuse of laudanum is just not considered that big a deal; on Earth, it was sold over the counter until the 20th century, and it was very very very popular. And there's no need for "hedge maesters" - if you can grow poppies, you can produce opium very easily, though not necessarily of the best quality. (No, I don't do this, but I knew someone who did.)

I think Moon tea is to contraceptives as Milk of the Poppy is to opiates.

Clearly there is a connection, but both are more exaggerated/different examples of things that exist in real life.

Also, it is possible that either poppies in Westeros can't be smoked, or no one has thought of it yet.

[mummer]

Ahmrogar, on 21 January 2011 - 07:16 PM, said:

I think Moon tea is to contraceptives as Milk of the Poppy is to opiates. Clearly there is a connection, but both are more exaggerated/different examples of things that exist in real life.

As far as I can tell, there's no difference at all between how milk of the poppy is described in the books and tincture of opium. I don't see any exaggeration there; he's a little vague about it maybe, but no one expects a Physician's Desk Reference article. You might as well say that "wine" in the books is really some fantasy substance that's just based on real-life wine.

Moon tea isn't a contraceptive, it's an abortifacient. Similar herbal preparations have been used on Earth, but no one's really sure how effective they were, so there we're a little more in fantasy-land.

As for why you don't see people smoking opium - well, if you look at how opium use developed in England and the US, there were always some people smoking it, but that was considered a really nasty habit; it's much harder to carry on your usual business if you're doing that, because you're going to be fucked up and nodding off for hours at a time, and it's not hard to get addicted. So it remained more of an underground practice. Laudanum on the other hand wasn't considered a hard drug at all; it was included in all kinds of things, given to babies, etc. People still understood that you could get in trouble with it, but it was thought of more like alcohol. In Victorian literature you sometimes see jokey references to a housewife or a maid having a bit of a thing for laudanum, whereas opium smoking was just unthinkable except for totally depraved characters in (possibly imaginary) hellish Chinese sin-dens.

(Edited to add: In Gregor's case, it may just be that he enjoyed chugging large amounts of pure alcohol at the same time, since that's the other ingredient in laudanum. Seems in character for him. But Qyburn probably wouldn't have been able to tell by physical examination what form of opium Gregor had been using, and it makes no difference to his treatment at that point anyway.)

Edited by mummer, 21 January 2011 - 08:12 PM.

[mummer]

While we're at it: the drug "sweetsleep", which is given to Robert Arryn for his epilepsy and to mellow him out in general, is sort of a fantasy version of either a barbiturate such as phenobarbital, or a benzodiazepine such as Valium. The effects are basically the same: they work as sedatives and also help to suppress seizures, you can develop a tolerance if you use them too often, and you can overdose and fall asleep and die. They don't occur naturally, but barbiturates can be produced with tabletop chemistry from animal and plant products; benzodiazepines would be harder.

However, the part about sweetsleep building up in the body and causing nosebleeds doesn't correspond to any real drug of that kind. I don't think any of those are particularly sweet either.

[madking]

Im wondering what dreamwine would be close to

[bran the beast]

opium is made form poppy so yes it is similar.

I always think of dreamsleep as a nice muscle relaxer

[Lady of the Dawn Beauty]

Thanks, guys. I didn't know that.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

I listened to the audio books for books 1-3. When Roy Dotrice reads this phrase, it sounds like he is saying "Milk of the Puppy"! I was thinking "Woah, Westeros has some freaky medicines!"

[undertow]

Lady Lyanna of Love, on 21 January 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

Some guy on this forum (in GOT sp. section) mention that he means that Poppy Milk was kind of opium or heroine.
Discusion was about flashbacks and he mention that TOJ could be show when Maester Pycelle bring Ned an opium. But, he think poppy milk was opium, but what if it really was opium or heroine and not poppy milk.

Woohoo, something I've said finally has merit. Heroin is semi-synthetic, so milk of the poppy would be more along the lines of opium/laudanum. Either way, I can't see of a way to explain milk of the poppy than as an opioid.

Edited by undertow, 25 January 2011 - 01:37 AM.

[BreakRunner]

Lady Lyanna of Love, on 21 January 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

Some guy on this forum (in GOT sp. section) mention that he means that Poppy Milk was kind of opium or heroine.
Discusion was about flashbacks and he mention that TOJ could be show when Maester Pycelle bring Ned an opium. But, he think poppy milk was opium, but what if it really was opium or heroine and not poppy milk.

Opium is taken from Opium poppy. It's the milky latex substance extracted from the plant's seed pods. Hence, the name Poppy Milk. Source: effects of opium

However, this is the first time that I encountered that it causes flashbacks. As far as I know, it doesn't.

[salt]

As peopel have mentioned, opium and morphine both come from poppies, it sounds like the "poppies" of westeros are very similar to if not identical to our poppies. So hypotehtically, Westeros could one day have morphine. If the wars keep going on, whoever discovers it will be a rich man .

I've always had the feeling that there would be some opium dens in Essos, I'm sure if you looked hard enough in Braavos or Volantis you would find some people smoking it.

Edited by salt, 10 February 2012 - 01:20 AM.

[Apple Martini]

Is this really a thing? I thought it was kind of a given that "milk of the poppy" was an opiate (e.g. morphine) of some kind.

[Lady of the Dawn Beauty]

Apple Martini, on 10 February 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

Is this really a thing? I thought it was kind of a given that "milk of the poppy" was an opiate (e.g. morphine) of some kind.

It's seem poppy milk is just a version of morphine.

[DarkSnow]

All opiates opium, Morphine, heroine, codeine etc. are synthesized from poppy seeds, i always assumed it was there version. I'd like to see some Westeros junkies.

[eyeheartsansa]

One would think some brothel somewhere in Westeros and/or Essos would also double as a 'milk of the poppy den.'

[Ser Lepus]

I don´t think the westerosi have the tech to develop morphine or heroine; I think the Milk of the Poppy is just some sort of opium potion.

The maesters seem to keep a monopoly of it (we never see a lord asking a servant to fetch him some milk of the poppy to help himself sleep or stop the pain; they always ask a maester), and they only use it as a medicine, so it would be difficult to find addicts, unless the maester decides to allow somebody to become an addict or is bullied into giving him the drug (like Gregor probably does).

Edited by Ser Lepus, 02 May 2012 - 01:40 PM.

[Howling4Reed]

Since milk of the poppy is taken orally it generally mirrors laudanum.