Jack Rackham holding an opium pipe.
Opium is a reddish-brown heavy-scented addictive drug prepared from the juice of the opium poppy, used as a narcotic and in medicine as a painkiller.
History []
Background []
Opium has been actively collected since prehistoric times. Over time it was introduced to the Islamic empires in the Middle East.
Opium was introduced to Western medicine in 1527. It was recommended in the 1660s by Thomas Sydenham, the “father of English medicine” as a remedy for sleeplessness and pain.
Compared to other chemicals available to 18th century physicians, opium was a benign alternative to arsenics, mercuries or emetics, and was quite successful in alleviating a wide range of ailments.
Opium is also used as an intoxicant. In Nassau, opium traders moved into the Governor’s Mansion. There is also a population of opium addicts who live in the Wrecks.
Season One[]
When Jack Rackham and Charles Vane arrive in the Wrecks, Vane asks Jack if he is scared. Jack replies that he isn’t, for there is nothing in the Wrecks but “opium addicts, lunatics and men who thought themselves too good to wear a condom.”[1]
After losing his ship and the bulk of his crew, Charles Vane takes to spending his days high on opium and fighting anyone who insults him. Jack finds him high in his tent and tells him that Vane needs to get his act together if they want their crew to function again.[2]
After Randall’s leg is amputated, he is left behind to recuperate with Eleanor Guthrie. He is given large amounts of opium to help with the pain and spends much of those days asleep.[3]
Season Three[]
While moving into the Governor’s Mansion, Eleanor Guthrie tells Woodes Rogers that opium traders moved into the mansion after she and her father moved out. Rogers jokes that he’ll fit right in with the most recent occupants.
While John Silver remains behind in the Maroon Camp, the wound on his amputated led festers. He tells Madi that he hasn’t had it treated yet because he has to appear strong to his men, and cannot do so when drooling in an opium haze.
Madi convinces him to get treatment from Fremah, a medicine woman, but he still refuses the opium. She tells him that if he still won’t take the opium, he should bite down on a stick while his wound is administered too, but he refuses that too. [4]