Chestnut Annihilation
Summer 2015
As posted, the Chestnut tree and bark was the number one product used to encourage a smooth delivery of the drug opium. The mixtures were used mainly in the southern USA states before the Civil War, 1865, but the long term effects of the casualties fuelled the demand for more Chestnut bark and it's branches. The tree was so neglected that it couldn't withstand the mounting stress in environmental changes related to the battle field damages, such as the Battle of the Wilderness Forest, to the bark's pharmaceutical supply on demand that extened for decades because of the opium addictive properties. In the mid 1900's the Chestnut tree, as massive as they were, contracted a blight that killed off the entire American east coast folage of trees. It was at that point in history that bark and branches from every tree type was tested for a soothing side effect...alltogether, the opium industry opened new doors into the world of future addicts because of the continual and varied bark and branch drug tests.
