opium

Afghanistan used to produce more than 80% of the world's opium, with heroin made from Afghan opium making up 95% of the market in Europe.

He had privately dismissed it as “spiritual opium,” according to the people close to Beijing, and viewed it as an easy sacrifice to secure the continued dialogue China needed.

The Los Angeles Times ran a particularly snarky article around the time of the 1943 concert that dismissed the singer as “an opium of emotionalism.”

“Proper though she may have been,” Agnes’ mother “did smoke opium.”

Opioids include drugs such as heroin that come from the opium poppy plant, as well as synthetically-made substances like fentanyl.