what is the difference between using opium in a Victorian way and heroin

[zippitippitoes]

....is it smoking it in a long hookah or taking it as a tincture?

Victorians taking opium were doing so for medical reasons and it was quite legal at the time.

Whereas now it is illegal with very good reason.

isn't heroin cut with something else

not all opium users in Victorian times were taking it for medical reasons! Sherlock Holmes was depicted as an opium addict who lost days smoking opium in opium houses. obviously based on real people at the time.

so smoking opium and heroin what is the difference...and why would opium be coming back into fashion like it was then?

Queen Victoria smoked giant spliffs to ease her period pains.

I'd love an opium tincture.

Preferably while lying on a purple velvet chaise longue under a dusty aspidistra.

Opium was the main ingredient in laudanum, which was very widely used as a a sedative and treatment for 'nerves' and all sorts. Plenty of well-off Victorian ladies were addicted to laudanum, though as long as they could get their daily swig they were fine (though probably rather vague ).

Heroin is a lot more processed and hence more concentrated and potent than opium as the Victorians knew it, which was more or less just boiled and filtered poppy sap dried out and squashed into lumps.
It wasn't smoked by burning it like tobacco, but heated and the hot vapour inhaled - more like a bong I guess...
Laudanum was opium dissolved in alcohol so was even less potent opiate-wise.

The Wiki article on heroin goes into the chemistry of getting from opium to heroin - it's jolly complex and time-consuming - meaning, I suppose, that opium could be cheaper to buy on the street as it needs less refining?

Didn't Queen Victoria take cocaine as well, or have I completely hallucinated that (without the aid of opium, I might add).

this site is intereting is it coming back more then? can't say i've met any opium smokers recently

[casts mind back]
I remember when it was so cheap and unpopular it was being used to bulk out (more expensive and more popular, hence more saleable) cannabis resin, rarely with desirable results.
(Somehow Trading Standards never seemed to care about mislabelling and the Description of Goods Act as it applied to drugs...)

I thin k someone from the un was saying so..

in the meantime this book looks rather good opium soaked

and has anyone seen this film from hell starring johnny depp

I've never heard of it

Wasn't opium used a lot by creative/arty types ? Or am I getting muddled up with something else?

that film is fantastic. Its about Jack the Ripper

zippi I've seen it
it was a bit weird and rather gory but quite good for a Friday-night DVD rental.

think i shall get it as it's 5.99 on play.com

so there are no opium dens opening up in the back streets then? faint disappointment