Date: February 27, 2006 3:43:32 PM EST
Subject: War(s) on Drugs
Erik C. Maiershofer
Hope International University
In the reading that I have done on the subject (largely in preparation for teaching World History), I do not recall coming across the claim that this was the first war on drugs. I believe it does have some resemblance to the recent "war on drugs" (which may or may not have been supplanted by the "war on terror"?) in that there was a concerted government program to attempt to halt importation of a drug. In addition, from what I have read about Lin Zexu, he appears to fit the title "drug tsar" in his responsibilities and actions.
There are, however, a number of other examples of the attempts of governments to regulate substances that could be defined as drugs: the Ottomans fought coffee and tobacco at different times and various European commentators pushed for legislating coffee and tobacco in the eighteenth century (though in both cases, these efforts were more concerned with the atmosphere of the cafe' in terms of political dissent than the drugs themselves). There are also numerous Arab accounts of groups attemping to ban hashish, one example being the declarations of the Wahhabbis after their taking of Mecca in 1805. I would not be surprised to find even earlier efforts at controlling substances in different cultures and governments.
As for Paul Johnson, my own thoughts have been that Opium addiction was both an issue of supply and demand. The British encouraged supply, as it seemed to be the one good that they could develop a market for in China, and demand certainly may have been encouraged by economic decline in China, rapid population growth and limited farming resources. These are my own speculations, and I would welcome any correction of these (particularly as I have noted some that debate China's economic decline at this point in history).