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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: maceng2 who wrote (11825)	11/28/2001 2:34:19 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) of 281500

But the opium wars and the drug trade? No Palmerston and the opium trade were stinkers no matter how much revenue it brought in. Those kind of problems undermined the real strength of the country over time. Without leaping to the defence of 19th century British trade policy, I would say that our more recent view of the drug trade colors our view of the Opium Wars in a way that is anachronistic. The British wished to open the Chinese market for opium in the 19th century. Opium was a substance that the Chinese wished to buy, but their government did not wish them to be able to buy. Opium was a substance that the British bought themselves in large quantities. They used tincture of opium -- laudenaum -- which was the only effective analgesic in the pharmacopia of the day. The addictive nature of opium was not well understood at this time and didn't become common knowlege until much later. So to just call it a "drug trade", which implies that the British were pushing a known poison on an unwilling or unwitting Chinese population, is not really fair.

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