Opium: How An Ancient Flower Shaped And Poisoned Our World

"In 1898, Bayer marketed a cough suppressant with an active ingredient that supposedly lacked the addictive qualities of morphine. Those claims were wrong; that ingredient was heroin. America’s current opioid crisis – fueled by misleading marketing of oxycodone – is, historically speaking, déjà vu. That’s what I realized reading Opium: How An Ancient Flower Shaped And Poisoned Our World. The book shows the ways this one flower, the opium poppy, has had a recurring role, for better or for worse, throughout human civilization and global trade."