Hobbies And Interests
Historical Context
In the late 18th and 19th centuries, people in the United States and Europe could legally purchase opiates, which were readily available in many teas and medications. However, newspapers of the era focused a great deal of attention on drug use in "opium dens," where the product of the poppy plant was smoked as it had been in Asia for generations. Perhaps in part because opium dens were owned by people of Asian heritage, mainstream white society saw the establishments as places of vice and debauchery. However, an association with rebellious behavior, along with the drug's dreamlike effects, made opium smoking very popular with a certain segment of upperclass gentlemen. Even those who did not indulge in the drug themselves could partake of opium debauchery by taking guided tours of opium dens in London and other large cities.
Literary Associations
Both opium addiction and opium dens became familiar to readers through books and poems published in the 1800s and 1900s. Thomas de Quincy, one of the writers said to have influenced Edgar Allan Poe, wrote "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" in 1821. Samuel Taylor Coleridge said that he wrote his poem "Kubla Khan" under the influence of opium. Victorian fiction writers such as Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde who wished to show the darker side of contemporary London made use of opium dens as settings for scenes in their stories.
Earliest Uses of Phrase in Print
An article by Josephine Clifford in the May 1880 edition of "Potter's Monthly American" referred to the sights in a tour of San Francisco's opium dens: "Upon a raised platform . . . was the inevitable opium jar, with lamp and pipes and a head-block on either side, where the smokers could stretch themselves at full length and enjoy their pipe-born dreams." Thus, the first use of the phrase in print referred to the effects of opium smoking on the user. Later, however, the phrase entered the realm of the metaphorical. The first use of the phrase as a metaphor seems to be in an article in a Chicago newspaper observing that aerial navigation had been "regarded as a pipe-dream for a good many news." Five years later, "The Chicago Tribune" compared "queer and unexplainable" events taking place in the city to the " 'pipe dream' of an opium devotee."
A Different Use of the Phrase
A 2003 U.S. federal government investigation into businesses selling products designed for smoking marijuana had the name Operation Pipe Dreams. The investigators targeted actor Tommy Chong, who had a business selling handblown glass pipes. Chong ended up spending nine months in jail.