Camporesi later continues:

It would be wrong to suppose that one must wait for the arrival of eighteenth-century capitalism, or even of imperialism, in order to see the birth of the problem of the mass spreading of opium derivatives (first of morphine and then, today, of heroin) used to dampen the frenzy of the masses and lead them back – by means of dreams – to the ‘reason’ desired by the groups in power. The opium war against China, the Black Panthers ‘broken’ by drugs, and the ‘ebbing’ of the American and European student movements (supposing that hallucinogenic drugs were involved in the latter, as some believe), are the most commonly used examples – we don’t know with what relevance – to demonstrate how ‘advanced’ capitalism and imperialism have utilized mechanisms which induced collective dreaming and weakened the desire for renewal by means of visionary ‘trips’, in order to impose their will.

The pre-industrial age, too, even if in a more imprecise, rough and ‘natural’ manner, was aware of political strategies allied to medical culture, whether to lessen the pangs of hunger or to limit the turmoil in the streets. Certainly we could laugh at interventions which are so mild as to appear almost surreal, amateurish or improvised; but we must not forget that both in theory and in practice the ‘treatment of the poor man’, cared for with sedatives and hallucinogenic drugs, corresponded to a thought-out medico-political design.

~ Piero Camporesi