Customer Reviews

Opium for the Masses: Harvesting Nature's Best Pain Medication (Feral House)

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4 star:		(3)
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This book has a fascinating, even forbidden tone to it. It is amazing that a plant which grows from a tiny seed and produces such a valuable product is veiled in mystery and deliberate mis-information. This book is a fairly easy read, unless you are concerned with the later chapters which include technical and chemical details. It has valuable information for both the general reader and the person looking for specific knowledge. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the topic, whether for simple knowledge or specific tips.

I bought this book because some friends and I were joking about opium and I decided I wanted to learn more about it. While I don't think I will ever produce opium for recreational or medicinal use, the book has renewed my interest in poppies as a colourful, beautiful flower that come in a huge variety of forms.

The book is informative on the nature of opium and poppy products and many of the important opiate alkaloids found within. The book goes on to describe other products of poppies, morphine to heroin for instance, but this was of less interest to me. My main concern was actually the flower and its direct products, rather than products of its products and etc.

I wish it was more detailed on the actual plant biology aspect, outside of opiates, but I understand that Hogshire is not a botanist and is not as interested in such things as the details of the roots or the poppy seed capsule's exact design. So I cannot blame him for not going in depth.

I do however appreciate the brief history given of poppies, opium, and the United States' take on the flowers. This I thought was a pleasant, and interesting, addition to the book.

Its sort of a catch 22. The title caught my attention and I am into natural medicine options. Pain relief is something that is regulated and we average citizens only access to those things is through an expensive medical industry that that nobody can afford unless they have health insurance and often medications are also expensive and over priced.

This book has a lot of history regarding creating natural pain methods that have been used prior to your rights and freedoms being legislated away that human beings have enjoyed since before recorded history.

We have to keep in mind all the laws and regulations are very "new" on the historic time line. The fact is more and more average people are finding themselves without access to health care at a cost that is reasonable or affordable. Information like this could be valuable to anyone who practices natural medicine.

Like anything, the information in this book could be abused and after reading this book and understanding this type of natural medicine and its history, how people get addicted and why - has empowered me to be a better patient and that knowledge ensures that I can fact check my treatment outlines and prescriptions properly so I don't end up needing more treatment because of some doctor not fully understanding the medications being utilized and their long term effects.

I feel like I have reclaimed what use to be common knowledge for all human beings to have. I'm not into "drugs" or drug abuse, though anyone who is would (laugh), this would be a must have for their book shelf.

This book sits next to other books like "Plant Medicine" and similar titles.

I found this book to be an excellent resource and read! I purchased the 'kindle' version and highly recomend it to anyone intersted in poppies and the different products derived from this genuine panacea. On this subject, it is likely, the only book an opium enthusiast needs. A 'must have' part of ones personal library!

Much that society deems prohibitively "evil" historically manifests as the proverbial "to make a mountain out of a mole hill." Corporate greed concocts an immensely unecessary amount of human suffering by virtue of keeping the general public ignorant. Sanctified by government establishments, socialized ignorance greatly increases their own agendas, most of which is of a financial nature. Mr. Hogshire's book exemplifies this very point. An educated society is both a more productive and safer one. Knowledge, like anything else, can and will be used by the individual for either constructive or destructive reasons and choices will generally be made to a large extent based on socio-economic justification. Herein, the opium poppy offers one the keys to both heaven, and hell. A no nonsense fact based document that everyone from educators, students, physicians, lawyers and lawmakers, in fact anyone reading this book will indeed learn a great many things about a great many things. As an American Citizen, I stand proud that our current political system, flawed as anything else in life, holds to every Citizens Right to freely access important information that continues to fuel strong emotion. A must read for all that can read!

An excellent book that examines historical uses, changes in attitudes over the past 100 year, legal issues, pharmacological "advances", cultivation, and preparation for use. Well done and thorough.

all the information you'll ever nead n som you dont even nead but a hiley recomended read for the poppy pod cultivater

While the author is obviously a hard-core dopper, the book is interesting to read.

Oh course, if we followed the author's advice, 50% of the population would be stoned.......