So then. The original stuff of the poppy. I am probably both much less, and much more, experienced with it than you may think. Less, because I've only really successfully smoked it on one occasion (more on that in a minute), and more, because the old opium tea ceremony has become a semi-regular, to pretty regular, habit for me over the past decade or so.
The effects are hard to describe if you've not had opioids of any sort at a 'decent' (meaning fairly high) dose - I mean the sort of thing you'd get prescribed for pain after a sizeable injury or an operation, not a couple of Solpadeine Max for a headache. It's an extremely somatic drug, for one thing. Physically euphoric, if that makes sense. You get these lovely warm rushes up and down your body, but very much *in* your body, as opposed to the electric crackle over the skin that you get with ecstasy or coke. The effects become much stronger when you lie down, in fact really the best way to enjoy the stuff is to take it before going to bed, whether by yourself or with someone else. It is *marvellously* tactile - every part of you demands to be stroked and held. Sex feels incredible but, unless you're some sort of superhuman, you can forget about coming.
Having said all that about lying down, it's also surprisingly conducive to dancing. Physical activity of just about any kind feels pretty good, and it can even feel like it's giving you energy. Apparently peasants in SE Asia would commonly use kratom, an opium-like plant, to give them energy and dull the boredom of planting and harvesting work, kind of in the same way European peasants would drink light beer while they worked. I can really see why, I mean the stuff is very relaxing but not actually a sedative of any kind. I have no idea how it came to be called 'Papaver somniferum', as in my experience it'll almost completely stop you sleeping. (Well, sort of - again, more on that presently.)
Another surprising thing about it, for newbies, is just how bloody long it lasts. Back when I had less of a tolerance for it, I found I could take some in the evening, be high all night, and still have a lingering buzz the next day, sometimes lasting for more than 24 hours after I first took it. Over the course of the night, it *is* just about possible to doze off in little fitful naps, but it's not so much that you really fall asleep, more that you enter this twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness. And the dreams, OH THE DREAMS. Opium is sometimes presented in media or fiction to be 'trippy', but that's really not right at all, at least it's nothing like actual psychedelics. It's more like you enter a psychic zone of very vivid and very disconnected dreaming, or watch sort of cut-up video of surrealistic landscapes, all kaleidoscopic colours whirling together, rays of a setting sun glinting on domes, spires and minarets, great forests, mountains, seascapes - it's very easy to see how it appealed to the Romantic imagination. Friends of mine have likened it to riding on a magic carpet, which I can get, because there is a sense of movement while you're having these visions, of swimming or flying at great speed.
The great bulk of my experience with the stuff, as I said, has been in the form of poppy tea, which tastes GHASTLY although you get used to it after a while, and you can mask it quite well with ginger and honey. Sometimes, when I can be bothered, I'll dry it out to make some solid stuff (I've seen it described online as 'fauxpium') which you can roll into little pills and swallow without too much fuss. This also makes it portable for clubs or festivals - it goes very well with MDMA and psychedelics, I've found. (Er, possibly less relevant to your Victorian chap, unless he's stayed up-to-date with available chemical recreations of the day. Although he might well be aware that being high on O makes smoking straight tobacco as euphoric as the best hash you've ever tasted.) The one time I can really say I've smoked it was the first time I attempted this, yeeaars back, just by drying out the tea to solid stuff and smoking it in a pipe. A bunch of us had come back from a club at New Year and were pretty high on other stuff, so it may have been placebo effect to an extent, but I'm fairly sure I got something from it. Anyway, it's a *great* way to come down from uppers. Other attempts to make smokeable opium haven't worked so well, so I've more or less given up on it. I think you need to harvest the stuff from the pod directly for it to be strong enough for that to work reliably. I've smoked heroin too, maybe a dozen times or so, and I would say the effects are broadly comparable, although of course it comes on far quicker and doesn't last as long.
Other things your character would certainly be aware of as a user: the itching! It's actually so pleasurable you don't even mind it, I mean it's almost orgasmically satisfying to scratch. I've woken after a tea session before with visible nail-marks on the side of my nose. You know how Kurt C sang "I got so high, I scratched till I bled"? Well, that. Your pupils shrink to teeny little pin-pricks, the exact opposite of stimulants. And there's also no getting away from the constipation and, if you overdo it, the puking. Ah, the glamour of drugs, eh?
I realize this has probably made me sound like a terrible junky but I'm glad to say that so far, touch wood, I've manage to keep it an every-other-weekend thing and have never felt anything that could be called a craving or withdrawal symptom. The only thing I'm worried about is if I seriously hurt myself and require pain relief, I might find myself saying to the paramedic who's just shot me up with enough gear to put most people in the happy fluffy place, "Are you avin a giggle?"
Speaking of opium tea, I found it quite cool that William Burroughs refers to opium as 'tea', and that in the junky subculture he moved in in the 50s, opium dens were called 'tea shops' or 'tea houses'. He also said (I think) that opioids taken orally were more addictive than by any other route, although I guess he meant more difficult to quit, rather than easiest to get hooked on in the first place.
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