Globalisation, cultural change and the modern drug epidemics: The case of Hong Kong

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, one of the localities in the world where the process of globalisation is most advanced, in order to examine the relationship between globalisation and the risk of illicit drug problems. It considers the impact of globalisation on both the supply side and the demand side of the illicit drugs market in Hong Kong. It is argued that, historically, the trade in dependence-producing substances like tobacco and opium was central to the creation of a world market; in particular, the nineteenth-century drive to bring Southeast Asia into a system of world trade led to the production and marketing of opium on an organised commercial basis, triggering the first of the modern drug 'epidemics'. Hong Kong, ceded to the British following the first Opium War, was central to this project, and to the creation of the financial and transport infrastructure needed to support large-scale opium trading. The British promoted the consumption of opium within Hong Kong, where its sale subsidised the colonial administration, with the consequence that opium use became widespread, and the postwar attempt to make opiates illegal was resisted. On the demand side it is argued that, by weakening traditional society through the phenomenon of disembedding, globalisation both created a collective crisis of identity and a means by which this might be resolved, through self conscious participation in an internationalised consumer culture, oriented towards drug use. It is concluded that globalisation may generate a new set of risks. The impact of globalisation on psychoactive substance use, in particular, deserves further investigation.