Part of a thread on the electronic list, H-World.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Eric L. Martin" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: February 27, 2006 11:57:51 AM EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: War(s) on Drugs
> Reply-To: H-NET List for World History <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Marion Diamond
> University of Queensland, Australia
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Hello everyone.  I've been lurking for some time, but finally feel  
> I've
> something to offer here, as I'm writing the biography of an early  
> 19C opium
> trader in Canton.
>
> I would argue that the Chinese first banned opium imports because  
> of the
> shift in the balance of trade.  Too much bullion was leaving the  
> country to
> pay for opium, whereas before opium became so important, tea  
> traders had to
> pay for their goods with silver.  No doubt the addictive nature of  
> opium
> was a consideration, but only one of a number.
>
> Addictive goods are ideal trade items, if you think about it in a  
> purely
> commercial sense, since demand for the product is constantly  
> renewed, and
> liable to increase over time.  Other products - tobacco, alcohol,  
> sugar?
> coffee? tea? - have served the same role in other global trading
> networks.  But I wouldn't call the initial Chinese ban on opium a  
> 'war on
> drugs', even though a hatred of 'foreign mud' later became  
> something of a
> nationalist rallying cry.  Commissioner Lin's burning of British opium
> before the 1839-42 Anglo-Chinese War was a very theatrical act of  
> defiance
> against foreign exploitation, and he is deservedly a hero as a result.
>
> The Chinese imported small amounts of opium during the 18C, but in the
> early 19C they made it illegal.  The East India Company stopped  
> trading
> *directly* in opium from about 1811 or 1812, after which it was  
> handled
> through private traders.  The trade expanded particularly after  
> about 1825,
> and when the EIC lost its monopoly on the China trade in 1833, it  
> spun out
> of control.
>
> By 'high levels' of opium use, does Johnson mean 'many people used  
> it', or
> 'a large quantity was imported'?  There's a difference.  The  
> Chinese smoked
> opium resin.  In this form it was consumed in large quantities,  
> since it
> was pretty cheap.  It therefore became a 'drug of labour' -  
> something to
> get a labourer through his long working day, in the same way that  
> other
> societies consume coca leaves or gin or coffee.  This means it was  
> very
> visible, since the working class tend to consume their drug of  
> choice in
> public rather than private.
>
> When opium is smoked, it is apparently only a mild narcotic, whereas
> European addicts like Samuel Taylor Coleridge would have taken  
> laudanum
> drops of opium dissolved in alcohol, which was much more potent.   
> Chinese
> labourers took the habit of opium smoking with them wherever they  
> migrated,
> so that opium dens became symbolic of Chinese expansion.
>
> Did other governments try to ban addictive substances from their
> people?  Another 19C example is the attempt by some Pacific islands  
> to stop
> the importation of alcohol.  The American missionary-supported  
> government
> in Hawaii tried to keep out French brandy imports in the 1830s, but  
> without
> success.