Donna Britt, age 12, of Rome, Georgia, for her question:

What exactly is opium?

Flowers are the crowning glory of the peaceable plant world and anybody can write a long long list of their beauteous qualities. However, roses have thorns that can prick you, poison ivy can be both beautiful and terribly itchy    and a certain kind of poppy gives us opium, a drug that has been both a curse and a blessing to mankind.

We think of the flowers as gentle beauties, fragile and friendly. It is hard to imagine that a few of them can be our deadly enemies. But this is true of the gorgeous opium poppy. The effects of this oriental beauty on the human mind and body have been known for thousands of years. Several times in history, whole populations of mankind have been hopelessly enslaved in its power. Naturally, the opium poppy itself does not go out of its way to enslave human beings. That part of the horror story is per¬formed by people. Many individuals choose to become its sorry slaves. But history records shameful stories of cold, calculating conquerers who intentionally foisted opium upon their teeming, impoverished victims in order to subdue and control them.

The source of the deadly drug is a plant that grows in dry, hot climates. Its ferny foliage grows three to four feet tall. Its greenery is stuffed with thick, milky sap and its large flowers may be red or purple or papery white. The slave making chemical is extracted from the seed pods of the flowers. Opium is cultivated where labor is cheap, and as the fragile petals fade, work weary women and children usually gather the green, unripened seed capsules. The harvest is wadded into tacky balls, refined and dried and mashed into fine white powder.

Since very few things are 100 per cent good or bad, nearly every medicine has its good and its bad qualities. The most helpful drug can be harmful to the wrong party or when taken in overdoses. Powerful, slave making opium has a redeeming quality. It is a soothing pain killer. The opiate drugs prepared from opium are a blessing to suffering patients. But they may be given only by doctors    who know that small doses may in time add the agony of drug addiction to a patient's illness. We have laws to restrict the prescription of opiates to the medical profession :and only qualified drug¬fists may sell them to the public.

The deadliest dangers are those that sneak up on us. The opiates sneak up with pretty promises and many short sighted persons break the law just to try them. A sad sack may try a few doses to become the life of the party, a jittery Joe may try to soothe his jangled nerves or knock himself into a never never world of blissful dreams. And, of all things, some try the daring experiment merely to rate in a popu¬larity contest with their friends. In any case, the pleasant introduction very soon becomes a cruel booby trap. The mind and the body take to these drugs and senselessly demand more and bigger doses. The craving victim becomes a slavish addict. The drug becomes a tyrant master, overriding everything else in life. Otherwise peaceful people will rob or kill others to get more of the drug. Nothing else matters until the addict is treated and the tyrant deposed.

In the past, drug addicts were imprisoned as criminals. Now we tend to regard them as patients and they are placed in special clinics and hospitals. But the treat¬ment is a stern challenge, for it requires the willing help of the patient. And, let's face it, those who try the dopey method of solving their problems in the first place are not likely to be sturdy, self helping characters. The sensible solution is a promise made to oneself never, ever to try any of the addicting drugs. If, now and then, you remind yourself that these dopey experiments are not for you, then you are not likely to be charmed or fooled into slavery.