IBO - Brian R. Lundin (100 books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📗

are too many plants just to be used by your people, what you do with the plants that are not used by the people?”

“We produce and sell morphine,” Diki said.
“That’s legal here?” Eli asks,
“Yes,” Diki continued, in your country, it is illegal because of the Harrison Narcotic Act, which was passed in 1914 to control each phase of the preparation and distribution of medicinal opium, although heroin wasn’t outlawed until 1923. Before the Harrison Act, opium was unregulated. Heroin is one of the by-products of opium, which has enslaved many of your country-men with its addictive qualities, but the plant themselves are neither good nor evil; it is the way that mans use it that determines that. If a smoker can relief some of the stress of his life by smoking a cigarette or a cigar, what is the harm? If a soldier wounded in battle is relieved of pain by being injected with a narcotic drug, what is the harm?” It is the misuse of the drug that causes harm. Alcohol is served legally in most countries of the world, the user may get drunk and kill someone in a car accident or abuse his family, or the alcohol may be relaxing to him. Your country banned the manufacture and sells of alcohol during prohibition and made criminals out of honest citizens who drank. You cannot blame the product you must blame the person who misuse the product. In china, there are opium dens where people can go into a house, smoke the opium, relax, and get high legally. They have found fossil remains of poppy seed cakes in Europe in the Neolithic Swiss Lake Dwellings that was carbon dated to 4000 years ago. Hippocrates, somewhere between 480-357 BC prescribed drinking the juice of the poppy seed to cure all types of ailments, an ancient Chinese surgeon, Hua, recommended eating opium before undergoing major surgery, the Chinese also mixed opium with their tobacco.
Your country with its pseudo-morality makes crimes of acts by individuals seeking their own pleasures. They are victimless crimes; no one is hurt except maybe the offender. Prostitution and gambling, is legal in some states and illegal in other states. However, who is the victim? No one forced the man to seek out a prostitute and no one forced the person to gamble, it is ridiculous. Your country used our black ancestors to harvest their main plant, cotton. Our people worked long hours in the hot southern sun to harvest their plant and received no benefits for their labor. Your country went to war with each other, primarily because of cotton and the slaves, but in my country, the plant has been used for only well, to help the people and relieve suffering, in not only my country but also the world. We have a brilliant chemist who is constantly doing research on “God’s Plant to discover more ways for it to help not only the people but all peoples. Next week we’ll go visit him.”
Malik ask,” Do you make heroin also?”
Diki laughing said, “No, we process the plant into morphine and we sell the morphine, to governments and large pharmaceutical companies, your government and many large drug companies in your country are our customers. We do not sell to individuals, our product is ninety seven percent pure after it is processed and we use no insecticides or chemicals on the plant. It grows as God intended it to grow, it need no help from us… hey its lunchtime,” Diki said.

They drove to a large house where they enter an expansive dining room with food laid out, buffet style. The tables with clean White tablecloths were outside under a large tent, besides a large pool.
“Good we've beaten the crowd,” Diki said.
Eli, looking surprised asked Diki “what's that?” pointing to the vegetables on the table.
“Diki smiling said, you mean you've been away from home so long you don't recognize mustard and collard greens, with salt pork, ham hocks and neck bones, and your favorite Eli, chitlins’, coleslaw and cornbread?”
Malik ask, “What do you know about greens and neck bones?”
“The greens grow wild in my country, which we eat but being Muslim we don’t eat the meat, because it’s pork. But I remembered one day at schools you mentioned how you would like some greens and ham hocks, and you Eli was always talking about chitlins’ so I contacted a back cook in Chicago got the recipe and there you are.”

After getting their food, they sat at one of tables by the pool. In a short time, the room is filled with people getting plates of food.

“Who are all these people,” Eli asked.
“My father and our people are partners in our drug business. This is what we call an eating place; they are all over the land for the people.”
“You mean your father feed all the people?” Malik asked.
“Yes, three meals a day,” Diki answered.
“About how many people,” Eli asked?”
“I would estimate over twenty thousand.”
“Do they have to pay for their food?” Malik asked.
“Oh no, it is provided by God's Plant,” Diki answered.
“The opium plant, Malik asked.”
“That’s right,” Diki answered.

Malik and Eli could not say anything; they had never experienced anything like this before. Malik’s mind had already begun to work, after lunch, Diki told them they were going to visit a processing plant, where the opium is converted into morphine. On the way to the processing plant, Diki explains how the process worked.

“A machine, similar to the cotton gin picks the plant in the fields. The machine cuts the plant exactly four inches above the ground. It is then loaded into heated trucks regulated to seventy degrees and taken to the processing plants where machines separate the leaves from the stems and separate the seed. There is a small amount of opium in the stems and leaves, but not enough to be concerned about; manufacturers for food seasoning and other purposes use them. Another machine extracts the milky white substance from the seed, which is opium. The raw opium is then tested for purity and is converted into morphine. Our ships and airplanes transport the product to our customers throughout the world, of course that is a crash course, and it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Would it be difficult to convert the morphine into heroin?” Malik asked?”
“Not really, any first year chemistry major could do it. Diki responded.
“How is it done?” Malik continued.
“Equal amounts of morphine and acetic anhydride is poured into a glass or enamel-lined container for six hours at 85 degrees, the morphine and acid combine to form impure diacetylmorphine, water and chloroform are added to precipitate the impurities. The solution is drained and sodium carbonate added to make the heroin solidify and sink. The heroin is filtered out of the sodium carbonate solution with activated charcoal and purified with alcohol. The solution is gently heated to evaporate the alcohol and what is left is heroin, which can be purified further by using ether and hydrochloric acid. This is very risky and in the hands of a careless chemist the volatile, either gas may ignite a violent explosion. The final product is a fluffy, white powder known in the trade as number four heroin. The first to process heroin was C. R. Wright, an English researcher who unwittingly synthesized heroin in 1874 when he boiled morphine and a common chemical, acetic anhydride, over a stove for several hours.”
Eli said to Diki, “I guess you did learn something in all those chemistry classes at school.”

The processing plant was a large white single story building with many windows, none of which was opened. At one end of the building was a loading dock that contained four trucks, at the other end there was another loading dock that contained four trucks. Malik, Eli and Diki entered through a door off one of the loading docks. Inside the building people was busy unloading the trucks and putting the plants, which were bundled, onto a conveyor belt, along the belt were people operating the machines. All of the workers wore white coveralls, white shoes, white hairnets, white masks, and white latex gloves.

“I’ve noticed there are no guards around, aren’t you afraid someone will try to steal something or raid the plant?” Malik asked.
“There are no need for guards, our plants are strictly legal and in compliance with our laws and the regulations of the United Nations. No one who tried anything foolish would ever get out of the country. There are fifty processing plants on the land; each plant employs about four hundred of my people.
Long ago, my father visited your country, and he went to a manufacturing company in Kohl, Wisconsin that made plumbing supplies and fixtures. He was very impressed with how the company was organized. The owner of the company had built a town around the plant for the workers and he built small but comfortable house that he sold to the workers at cost, there was a bank; grocery and clothing store, a movie theater, and the worker could eat in the company restaurant at a reduced cost. My father brought that concept back to our country; our workers live in a similar city about five miles away from the plant. The homes are nice and, depending on the family size, they range from one to four bedrooms. They all have air – conditioned and they are sold at below market value. The workers are paid a salary, but they are also shareholders in the company; quarterly they receive a percentage of the company’s gross, not net sales. Their food as you have seen is free, but there are stores in the town where they can buy food or other items.
I know you guys are probably tired now, we'll go back to the house, have something cool to drink and relax by the pool,” Diki said.

Malik noticed on their way back, every twenty miles or so they would pass a processing plant and a short distance away from the plant was the town, with its neat houses. When they arrived at the house Mr. Montovo met them.

“Hi guys, how was the tour?”
“Very interesting, Malik said.”
“I must compliment you sir on your organizational skill,” Eli said to Zuba.
“Thank you, why don’t you guys freshen up and I will meet you at the pool?”
“Fine papa, we’ll meet you at the pool,” Diki said.

When Eli and Malik got to their rooms, there were a swimsuit, swim cap, sandals, and a multi-colored dashiki lying on the bed and a bowl of assorted fruits and juices was on a serving tray. Malik did not need the swimsuit because he did not know how to swim. He ate a piece of the fruit, took a shower, and put on the dashiki. Malik joined Mr. Montovo by the pool; shortly Diki and Eli joined them.

”My brothers, you look like African Kings, there is nothing more beautiful than the black race, come sit down,” Zuba said, motioning to large chairs underneath