Jonathan Tremblay: A Brief History of Heroin at Oxford University
It was recently revealed by an anonymous e-mail to the authorities that heroin sale and use at Oxford’s Christ Church College is “rampant”. Analysts suggests that this is no surprise and that it is even part of a “decades-long drug culture” that has been running wild at Oxford and other high-level institutions of schooling since the 1960s. One would think, with a reputation as one of the most prestigious higher education institutions on earth, Oxford University would be the very last place where the large-scale use and sale of heroin would become a problem. Some further studying proves otherwise.
Oxford is composed of some 36 different colleges but none are more renowned than Christ Church. Certified during the reign of Henry VIII in 1546, it accepts few admissions yet has yielded over a dozen leaders of the UK and countless important politicians, economists and businessmen; this is more than all the other Oxford colleges combined. On another note, Christ Church was also the castle setting in both Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. It began it’s life as a cathedral of Henry VIII’s new and defiant Anglican Church and has apparently not lost its attraction to controversy in the twentieth century and beyond.
As for the illicit substance in question, Heroin, or its constituent parts anyway, it has been around for far longer than you might think. From the Opium poppy grown today in Afghanistan and in South-East Asia’s “Golden Triangle”, the sap has been harvested and smoked at least since the eighteenth century when it became known in the West. In the mid 1800s, scientists distilled the drug and concentrated its narcotic properties into an even more powerful sedative and anesthetizing drug, morphine. A miracle cure, it was used to treat headaches, ulcers, alcoholism and…opium addiction. Later on, a German company called Bayer (still the makers of the Aspirin), refined the drug further into its ultimate form, diacetylmorphine. It was not a very sexy brand name so they tested it on a few subjects who then suggested they felt immortal (before presumably falling in a drug-induced semi-coma/stupor); the substance was thus named “Heroin”, a name it still carries despite the fact that Bayer, incidentally, no longer sells the product. In the twentieth century, Heroin has become illegal, its production has been refined and thus prices are much lower now than they once were. That being said, it remains one of the most expensive street drugs.
Making its way from pharmacies, to the underground scene, to street dealers and finally in schools internationally, Heroin became a staple drug in the post Woodstock 1970s and 80s. From inner city schools in America where it was relatively little-used when compared to marijuana, LSD and cocaine which were the affordable and available drugs of choice, it was introduced and much more popular in ivy league universities and upper-class institutions such as Christ Church in an era where drugs opened the “doors of perception” and were a way to the hippie culture and the search for personal enlightenment. Thus with a heavier price tag, black tar heroin came with a certain level of sophistication and became a right of passage for some at Oxford where a beer could serve the same role in a Canadian college. The harmless use of heroin in the 70s gradually became the full-blown and devastating addiction in the 80s, 90s and 00s.
This relatively underground use at Christ Church exploded onto the public air waves in 1986 when Student Olivia Channon was found dead of a heroin overdose. Not only was she a promising young student that was seemingly on the fast track to a successful career, she was the daughter of Lord Paul Channon, Cabinet minister of Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government. Uproar at first asked how such a promising and seemingly responsible young adult studying at Oxford could use such a drug but investigators soon found that at Christ Church “There are quite a few people on drugs”.
Incidentally, Ms. Channon had been found in the bed of another Christ Church attendee and indeed another Heroin fiend. Count Gottfried von Bismarck (great-great-grandson of Germany’s founder and Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck) was expelled in 1986 for hosting the alcohol and heroin fuelled party but stayed around and became known for the extravagant and hedonistic functions he would hold. Another of aristocratic Europe’s best and brightest, he finally passed away in 2007 at the age of 44, leaving a corpse riddled with Hepatitis B, C, HIV and the hourly injections of cocaine that morning that led to a what looks like a voluntary overdose.
These are but two of the most tragic stories that seem to show that there is something amiss in Christ Church, Oxford College and prestigious higher education institutions in the Western World in general. Whether it be due to the high level of stress that comes from the, media attention, family expectations and responsibility of studying at such an institution, these students of rich and dynastic families seem no different than other post-secondary schools in regards to drug traffic. If anything, they seem worse.
From the sexual revolution to the doors of perception to recreation and addiction, drugs are today as much a part of studying at Oxford and other such universities as the outrageous tuition fees and prestigious diplomas they dispense. The next time someone says they graduated from Harvard, Cambridge, or Yale, congratulate them on surviving without a $1000-a-week drug habit.