Sale Of Opium Research Articles

Boundaries, Borders, and Imperial Control: Opium and the Imperial Project in Southeast Asia, 1890-1930

Cet article explore le défi paradoxal qui tenaille la puissance de l’État colonial en expansion du fait des tentatives des gouvernements coloniaux de l’Asie du sud-est de réglementer de plus près l’importation, la vente et l’utilisation d’opium. À la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle, ces gouvernements sont intervenus pour solidifier la tutelle de leur territoire tout en commençant à instaurer des programmes liés à l’idéologie de mission civilisatrice en cours. L’industrie de l’opium représentait un moyen d’affirmer les compétences des États en développement dans ces deux domaines. Les gouvernements coloniaux ont ainsi établi des monopoles d’État non seulement sur l’importation mais aussi sur la vente de l’opium, avec l’objectif annoncé de réduire les dangers de l’opium pour les sujets de la colonie. Ils ont aussi renforcé les pouvoirs de surveillance des frontières partout où le stupéfiant passait en contrebande. Dans ces deux secteurs d’activité, cependant, la résistance et l’infraction aux politiques coloniales sur l’opium ont révélé la faiblesse des colonies en matière d’application, malgré la hausse du financement, l’augmentation des corps policiers et de contrôle frontalier, ainsi que la coopération intercoloniale.

An Historical Overview of Opium Cultivation and Changing State Attitudes towards the Crop in India, 1878–2000 A.D.

The opium trade yielded enormous profits to the British imperialists during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. While China was forcibly converted into the largest market for opium by the British from the early nineteenth century, India emerged as a fertile ground for the cultivation of poppy and manufacturing of opium under British monopoly during the colonial period. British rule in India and British control of the Indian princely states ensured a steady supply of opium from India to China, thereby facilitating the transfer of economic surplus from China to Britain. So profitable was the opium trade that the cultivation and production of opium in India was carefully monitored by the colonial state. The aim of the colonial state in India was profit maximization from the production and sale of opium but gradually, under growing international pressure after the First World War, feeble measures were contemplated to scale down the opium trade. The Indian nationalists, however, were firmly opposed to opium and tirelessly criticized the colonial discourse and policy on opium. Following this, after independence, the government of India became committed to the imposition of severe restrictions on poppy cultivation and opium production. From 1947 poppy would be grown in India under strict government control and only for medicinal purposes. Thus opium production was subjected to state monopoly during the colonial period and in independent India for different reasons. On the other hand opium smuggling, as a breach of state monopoly, remained widespread during the colonial period. Similarly, and despite the costly efforts made by the post-colonial state in India, substantial leakages into the illicit opium market have been reported by the sources since independence. This article narrates the story of attempted state control of poppy cultivation and opium production in modern India in the context of the challenges posed to the eradication of opium addiction by the politics of the Cold War and globalization eras

Still Under the Act? Subjectivity and the State in Aboriginal North Queensland

ABSTRACT Both the colonial encapsulation and post‐colonial recognition of North Queensland's Aboriginal population have been achieved through legislative demarcation. This paper explores the way such demarcation has extended the influence of the state within local Aboriginal life‐worlds, focusing on the State of Queensland's Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 and the Commonwealth's Native Title Act 1993. Drawing on ethnographic and historical material from Central Cape York Peninsula, and recent anthropological theorization of the state, I argue that anthropologists need to seriously consider Aboriginal claims about what Michel‐Rolph Trouillot calls ‘state effects’. But careful examination of these claims suggests that the state no longer simply imposes its projects on fundamentally distinct Aboriginal life‐worlds. Not only is the state now deeply engaged within these life‐worlds, it is also deeply interwoven into post‐colonial Aboriginal subjectivities.

Empire on the Cheap: The Control of Opium Smoking in the Straits Settlements, 1925–1939

Already between 40 and 50 percent of the military contribution is derived from the sale of opium. I say nothing about the Imperial Government thus drawing any revenue from what it is committed to regard as a tainted source.

Contentious Connections

Contentious Connections

Opium in 20th-century Britain: pharmacists, regulation and the people.

To indicate how the system of pharmaceutical regulation of the sale and use of opium in Great Britain continued throughout the first half of the 20th century. An oral history investigation of community pharmacy in Great Britain (n = 50), together with an analysis of standard pharmaceutical texts. Community pharmacies in Great Britain during the 20th century. Retired community pharmacists with experience of the sale and use of opium during the period. Oral testimony of retired community pharmacists about the use and sale of opium, and quantitative analysis of numbers of official preparations of opium available during the period. The popular use of opium continued well after the First World War, and its use as an ingredient of prescribed medicines continued well beyond the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948. Although the role of pharmacy in the regulation of opiates and other drugs was displaced by medicine following the passage of dangerous drugs legislation in the 1920s, pharmacists continued to play an important part in this regulation, exercising considerable discretion in the process.

Opium to Heroin: Restrictive Opium Legislation and the Rise of Heroin Consumption in Hong Kong

Given our current preoccupation with conducting a war on drugs, we run the danger of forgetting that, once upon a time, the sale of opium was widely condoned and, in some Asian societies under colonial rule, even monopolized by the state. While this clearly encouraged the widespread use of opium in these societies, some have claimed that it at least served to keep more dangerous and addictive drugs at bay. Within Asia there is no question that the postwar era has seen a dramatic shift away from opium to other addictive drugs, in particular heroin, and that this has coincided with the introduction of anti-opium laws. Are we then justified in concluding that the success of the anti-opium movement in prohibiting opium has served to encourage the spread of heroin?

The Opium Question in the Federated Shan States, 1931–36: British Policy Discussions and Scandal

The earliest known evidence for the existence of the opium poppy has been traced to the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages in west central Europe. Arab traders introduced opium into Asia, and in the eighth century A.D., it had been used in China. By the nineteenth century, China provided the most lucrative market for traders, primarily British and American, who brought opium to China from India and the Ottoman Empire. Opium use also proved to be popular among the overseas Chinese communities in Siam, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. The Chinese demand for opium, the lucrative profits to be gained from the manufacture, transfer, and sale of opium, and official connivance at edicts to prohibit its import into China, served to create a flourishing trade.

Early Twentieth Century Responses to the Drug Problem

Although it is difficult to ascertain when Americans first began to en gage in the abuse of habit-forming drugs, the 1889 Annual Report of the Massachu setts Board of Health reported that narcotic addiction permeated all social classes. Furthermore, W.R. Cobbe's Dr. Judas, A Portrayal of the Opium Habit argued in 1895 that people who used opium and morphine were for the most part intelligent and respected citizens who purchased their narcotic supplies in local phar macies. Indeed, not only were ad dicts able to purchase opium legally, but many who had no intention of becoming addicted were encouraged to purchase various types of cures that had such high narcotic content that their users unknowingly joined the ranks of the addicted. The states were not oblivious to the problems presented by increased addiction. By 1897, three had passed laws regulating the use and sale of opium and/or cocaine. The federal govern ment, however, did not begin to address the growing addiction problem until after the Spanish-American War in 1898, when the United States acquired the Philippines where many inhabitants smoked opium. To reduce the addiction rate, in 1905 Con gress prohibited opium sales within the archipelago. By 1911-12, articles in various maga zines reflected the increase in drug use. Hampton s Magazine, for example, alerted its readers that soft drinks sold in local

Opium and the Indonesian Revolution

The Indonesian revolution was a costly affair. Not only was it accompanied by the extensive destruction of life and property, but the actual logistics of fighting a protracted revolution placed enormous financial demands on the new Indonesian Republic, founded on 17 August 1945, three days after the Japanese surrendered, at a time when the revolutionary government was decidedly ill-equipped to meet them. The Republic was unable to take over immediately all the revenue sources of the colonial government and faced major difficulties in rapidly building up an alternative taxation structure. Needing a ‘soft’ form of taxation which was easily collected and which did not fall too obtrusively on the shoulders of its citizens, it turned to opium. The sale of opium to addicts had been used by colonial governments in Southeast Asia as a source of revenue, although its importance had greatly declined in the twentieth century. The Republic, however, not only maintained the colonial distribution and sales network but expanded its use of opium to make the drug an important source of government revenue and, for a time, a major source of foreign exchange.

Narcotic Addiction and Methadone Treatment in Hong Kong: Lessons for the United States

ze qtion on the basis of policies of Imperial China, which > severely curtailed access of English goods to the Chinese market. As a result, British purchases of silk and tea were offset only minimally by the sale of English products, and instead had to be paid for primarily with silver. In order to contain this drain on bullion, the British began trading with opium, which was grown readily in India. The sale of opium to China was also illegal, but was accomplished readily through overt corruption among Chinese officials, and was fostered by the large and rapidly growing demand for the product. The entire trade with China was carried out through Macau, the only Chinese port open to foreign ships until Hong Kong was ceded to Britain in 1842. China was resistant to repeated suggestions that the importation of opium be legalized. The Tao Kowng Emperor stated in 1843: "It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people" (1). Even in England there developed a sentiment against the Government-condoned sale of opium to China. In response, the Hong Kong Colonial Surgeon sought to downplay the effect of opium on the Chinese population by saying in 1881: "Opium smoking does not do 1 /loooth part of the harm to either the individual or his family that alcohol does at home" (2). Comparisons between the relative harm caused by narcotic abuse and alcoholism, and competition for dollars to combat the respective problems, continue to this day in the United States and elsewhere.

Opium in the Straits Settlements, 1867-19101

Throughout the nineteenth century, the revenue of the Straits Settlements Colony was derived to a very considerable extent from opium. Imported from India, opium in bulk was sold by the Government to Chinese merchants in Malaya who applied for the right to retail it. This monopoly, or farm, supplied the Government with almost half of its annual revenue. By 1904, in fact, it accounted for 59% of the revenue, and although measures of control were introduced in 1910, leading reluctantly to measures of restriction, the sale of opium provided Singapore and the two other Straits Settlements (Penang and Malacca), with a revenue right up to the outbreak of the Pacific War.

International Efforts to Control Narcotics

Although opium was apparently known to the ancient Sumerians and narcotic bearing plants were used by early inhabitants of the American continents, little is known of trade in these items.' Early land trade of the Arabs brought opium to China during the reign of Taitsu, 1280-1295, and later to Persia and India. The earliest sea trade known is that of the Chinese junks that sailed to Malaya for opium grown there.2 While the earliest European trade in opium is attributed to the Portuguese who traded with China about 1729, it appears that the English, through the East India Company, engaged in the trade after the victory of Clive at Plassy in 1757. Nor was the United States of America to be guiltless, for the fastest of American clipper ships came to be used in the oriental trade. Even though the trade was illegal, many local Chinese officials tolerated it to their profit. The Imperial Manchu Government objected but the trade continued. In March, 1839, The Emperor ordered the Chinese Commissioner to Canton, Lin Tse-hsu, to stop the trade and order all opium in Canton to be seized. The British agents withdrew to the Island of Hongkong and Portuguese Macao.3 The infamous Opium War followed. The result was that in 1842 Britain forced China to cede Hongkong, pay for the opium seized at Canton and allow the opium trade to continue at five specified ports. The British sale of opium reversed the previously unfavorable trade balance with China. By shipping opium from India to the Celestial Empire, they had a product to exchange for tea and silk,-and the British must have their tea. The fast clippers of India's Wadia Yards and the American clippers from Boston were in demand for his shipping because their speed eliminated the necessity of naval protection and heavy cannon to defend themselves against the powerful pirate fleets along the Chinese coasts.4 The firs official act by the United States concerning tra e in opium appears to be a treaty with Siam in 1833, in which the United States recognized opium as contraband merchandise. This treaty was further implemented by the treaty with S am of May 29, 1856 in which the United States agreed to restrain American citizens from engaging in the trade.

Act of Congress of December 17, 1914. Sale of Opium

Act of Congress of December 17, 1914. Sale of Opium

The Sale of Opium

The Sale of Opium