Opium lamp

  An opium lamp is an oil lamp designed specifically to facilitate the vaporization and inhalation of opium. Opium lamps differ from conventional lamps for lighting in that they are designed to channel an exact amount of heat upward through their funnel-shaped chimneys. An opium pipe, its pipe-bowl primed with a small dose of opium known as a "pill", was held over the opium lamp causing the drug to vaporize and allowing the smoker to inhale the intoxicating vapors. [1]

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Opium lamps were crafted mainly in China until the communist takeover in 1949 brought opium smoking to an abrupt halt there. Small-scale production of opium lamps continued in Hong Kong until the mid-1960s.

Due to anti-opium eradication campaigns in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, antique opium lamps are now exceedingly rare. [2]

Further reading

• Steven Martin, The Art of Opium Antiques (Silkworm Books, 2007). Photograph-driven descriptions of antique Chinese and Vietnamese opium smoking paraphernalia.

References

Antique Chinese opium paraphernalia photographs [3]

External links

• Opium Museum