Please visit: www.OpiumMuseum.com

My channel is venue for me to gather and critique scenes that depict opium smoking in motion pictures. I am a collector of antique Chinese opium-smoking paraphernalia, and was fortunate enough to have witnessed the complex and mesmerizing ritual of opium being smoked in the Chinese manner before the last opium den in Southeast Asia was shut down in 2002. By that time the vestiges of what was once a widespread custom could be found only in Laos, a landlocked and hermitic country whose xenophobic policies and dependence on Soviet aid had created a kind of time capsule that allowed old ways to continue long after opium smoking had been eradicated in neighboring countries.

It is still widely known that opium was not only a narcotic scourge, but also a major political football of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Finally, in 1909, nations came together in order to force an end to the British opium trade with China as communities in Asia and North America enacted bans on smoking the drug. But before the opium trade and subsequent glut made opium affordable to even the poorest Asians, opium was an elitist vice -- indulged in by the court eunuchs and even emperors within the deepest chambers of old Peking's Forbidden City. It was here that the paraphernalia and ritual of opium smoking reached dizzying artistic heights. Opium pipes, lamps and other accouterments were crafted from the finest materials -- ivory, jade, silver, and semi-precious stones. Mandarins and wealthy merchants made opium an integral part of late Qing dynasty culture. Once the drug was banned and its paraphernalia outlawed, these works of art were heaped into piles and burned in public bonfires. From Shanghai to Bangkok to San Francisco, the means to smoke opium were destroyed along with the drug itself. Due to the distinctive paraphernalia needed to smoke the drug, not to mention the skill necessary to prepare it, opium smoking was comparatively easy to stamp out.

So thoroughly was this eradication carried out that, barely a hundred years after its heyday in the late 19th century, the accouterments of opium smoking and knowledge of how to use them have all but vanished. This is nowhere more apparent than in modern films in which directors try to depict scenes of opium smoking. Some of Hollywood's greats have taken on the subject. Directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, whose attention to detail is legendary, have tried and failed to craft an authentic and lifelike opium smoking scene. Of course it can be argued that there are very few members of film audiences who could ever know the difference, and thus there is little impetus for moviemakers to get their scenes right.

I beg to differ. Right or wrong, opium smoking was a part of the human experience, and as such the details of its accoutrements, rituals, and lore should be preserved for posterity. I am not advocating the use of opium. My appreciation lies in the design and aesthetic genius of opium paraphernalia as well as the ritual that evolved around its preparation and ingestion. In no other addictive substance did man's quest for mood-enhancement reach such artistic heights.

For those interested in learning more about opium accoutrements and ritual as art, a book on the subject has recently been published by Silkworm Books. The photograph-driven book features over a hundred color images of antique Chinese opium smoking paraphernalia, as well as historical photographs of opium smokers in Asia and America. The book is entitled "The Art of Opium Antiques" by Steven Martin. This book can be ordered through Amazon.com

Also, please check back now and again as I will be regularly adding more critiques of opium-smoking scenes on film.