Opium information

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The British government granted the British East India Company a monopoly in the opium business in India in the early 1700's(18 ).

At the time the British colonial government in China was heavily dependent on Opium revenues. For instance Singapore and other straits settlements Opium made up to 30 to 60 percent of the revenues collected yearly for the entire century after 1819(19 ).

To fight the abuse of opium the Chinese Emperor banned the import and abuse of opium. Colonial authorities ignored this ban and continued shipments. The Qing Court examined the legalizing the opium trade in 1836, but rejected this idea. This disagreement over opium trade led to the out breaks of Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars in the 1830's and 1850's(20 ).

The first of the Anglo-Chinese Opium Wars happened from 1839-42. British merchants started smuggling opium into China to balance Chinese exports of tea to Britain. China was defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), plus the Treaty of Bogue (1843). These treaties opened the ports of Guangzhou, Jinmen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai to British trade and residence. Hong Kong was also ceded to the British(21 ).

The second Anglo-Chinese Opium War broke out after an allegedly illegal Chinese search of a British registered ship called the Arrow, in the Chinese town Guangzhou. The Chinese again lost and were forced to accept the treaty of Tianjin (1858). This treaty opened up eleven more ports, permitted foreign legations in Beijing, sanction Christian missionary activity, and legalized the importation of opium(22 ).

Along with the losses due to these treaties China lost about 20,000 soldiers in these wars(23 ).

Opium else where on the globe

200 years ago Opium was in every household. Usually in the form of laudanum, America's households used it as an pain killer, for hangovers, and hysteria and other conditions (24 ).

Sir William Osler called Opium "God's Own Medicine". American physician John C. Gunn said Opium was, "the monarch of medicinal powers, the soothing angel of moral and physical pain". Other doctors express concern over Opium, William Buchan thought opium was a "vegetable poison," and believed it it should only be taken on occasion and in regulated amounts(25 ).

Post Civil War America saw a boom in the use of opiates. One wholesale drug house said it distributed more than 600 proprietary medicines and other products that contained opiates(26 ).