An intelligent and authoritative history of opium--a drug that has both healed and harmed since the beginning of civilization. Poppy tears, opium, heroin, fentanyl: humankind has been in thrall to the "Milk of Paradise" for millennia. The latex of papaver somniferum is a bringer of sleep, of pleasurable lethargy, of relief from pain--and hugely addictive. A commodity without rival, it is renewable, easy to extract, transport, and refine, and subject...

This true crime history recounts the legendary rise and nefarious fall of nineteenth century America's most successful drug smugglers. In 1886, five men met at San Francisco's luxurious Baldwin Hotel to discuss a most profitable business: opium smuggling. The exploits of Will Whaley and his partners became the stuff of legend, with tales of landing contraband on deserted shores by the light of the moon, voyages across the Pacific, typhoons and shipwrecks....