Was Plotinus influenced by opium?

SOME justification is necessary for adding to the list of suspected opium-takers of the past. The academic game of seizing on certain similarities between the thought of a selected victim and the features supposed to be characteristic of opium dreams long ago became something of a bad habit. In the case of Plotinus (205-270 A.D.), however, grounds for the belief can be found outside his own writings, in the facts known of his life and times, and it is this evidence which the present article first sets out to bring forward. This is followed by a discussion of the influence that opium might with justification be supposed to have exerted on his thought.