Still, opium is by no means as strong as the drug created by a English chemist who used opium as its raw material: heroin.

Heroin was first produced in 1874, and was given the name because it was meant to win the battle against terrible diseases – such as morphine addiction.

It affects dopamine and pain transmission in the brain, so the user feels peaceful and relaxed and feels no pain.

Alas, it quickly became clear that heroin was very, very addictive. It has been banned as a hard drug in most countries, and not for nothing.

In places like Afghanistan I am still cultivated on a huge scale for the heroin market. There you can find hundreds of thousands of poppy fields full of pink and white poppy flowers.

They look beautiful, but they are forbidden. The poppy fields also bring misery: many are in the hands of large terrorist organisations, and the fight against these groups is costing ever more lives.