modern man deafens himself with music in order not to harken himself.

— Nicolás Gómez Dávila

.

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must

- Thucydides

I wonder why Pontevin does not make his very interesting ideas public. After all, he hasn't got such a lot to do, this Ph.D. historian sitting bored in his office at the Bibliothèque Nationale. He doesn't care about making his theories known?
That's an understatement: he detests the idea. A person who makes his ideas public does risk persuading others of his viewpoint, influencing them, and thus winding up in the role of those who aspire to change the world. Change the world! In Pontevin's view, what a monstrous goal! Not because the world is so admirable as it is but because any change leads inevitably to something worse. And because, from a more selfish standpoint, any idea made public will sooner or later turn on its author and confiscate the pleasure he got from thinking it. For Pontevin is one of the great disciples of Epicurus: he invents and develops his ideas simply because it gives him pleasure. He does not despise mankind, which is for him an inexhaustible source of merrily malicious reflections, but he feels not the faintest desire to come into too close contact with it. He is surrounded by a gang of cronies who get together at the Café Gascon, and this little sample of mankind is enough for him.

- Slowness, by Milan Kundera

One key remedy from the East was opium, largely imported from Turkey. It had been in use in Egypt in the second millennium BC, and Avicenna إبن سينا called it 'the most powerful of stupefacients'. Ever the queen of drugs, it was profusely used in western medicine from the sixteenth century, and Thomas Sydenham (1624 - 89) later proclaimed that 'among the remedies which it has pleased the Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.' It seemed the wonder drug; not just a pain-deadener, it also stopped dysentery and relieved respiratory disorders.

- The Greatest Benefit To Mankind

Stupefacient (n.)
A tranquilizer drug, causes drowsiness.

Poppy plant نبات الخشخاش

نبات الخشخاش هو اللي يستخلصون منه الأفيون Opium. الأفيون يحتوي على مركّب فعال هو المورفين Morphine اللي يشتغل على مستقبلات الأفيون اللي بجسمك ويتسبب بهواي تأثيرات من ضمنها تقليل الشعور بالألم، تقليل حركة الأمعاء، وشغلة أخيرة مهمة هي أنّه يشتغل على مراكز التنفس والكحة cough center بالدماغ ويمنع الكحة أو يقللها، بس بجرعات عالية ممكن يطفي مراكز التنفس أصلًا (بالإضافة للخدر وفقدان الوعي) فتتوقف عن التنفس وتموت بالإختناق.

Morphine is the active molecule.
While codeine is the prodrug of morphine (3-methylmorphine).

Dextromethorphan is from the same family but mainly works on the cough center, so you can find it everywhere in cough syrups.

Heroin is a derived compound of morphine thag was originally thought to be more potent (that's true) but less addictive (that's wrong) than morphine.

Morphine now is mainly used as a painkiller in cases of severe pain, and administered under strict supervision.
Codeine is used as a painkiller too, and rarely as a cough suppressant (it can be addictive).
Dextromethorphan is mainly a cough suppressant.
While Heroin, as far as I know, does not have medical uses.

الفكرة هي أنّ كلهن يسببن الخدر بدرجة أو بأُخرى، بس بنفس الوقت كلهن يأثرن على الـ cough center

لهذا مدمني هاي المواد يكونون تحت خطر الإختناق، لأن دماغهم يبطل يرسل الإشارة للرئة حتى تشتغل ويتنفسون.

House MD's vicodin is a hydrocodone¹/paracetamol

¹semi-synthetic opiate.

Insomnia does really fuck you up

Nah ur already fucked up

That's true ngl
But the fuck up gets even worse