The opium poppy looks delicate and innocuous. But for Amitav Ghosh, an Indian writer, it is “one of the most powerful beings that humans have encountered in their time on Earth”. Mr Ghosh’s elegant ...

The United States is losing the New Opium War with China. Leaders in Washington, D.C. appear unwilling to acknowledge that a fight even exists. A crisis of addiction in China in the 19th century, ...

The problem began with a flower, a delicate blossom with a slender stalk. It was a fragile-looking plant, with petals as fine as tissue paper, yet it proved to be a formidable opponent. As the ...

Opium is a highly addictive drug. It’s made from juice extracted from the unripe seed pods of opium poppy plants (the scientific name is Papaver somniferum). Opium is used to make a class of drugs ...