History
Addictive drugs were first prohibited in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An Illegal Drug Trade emerged during the 19th century; China retaliated with imports of opium, and two Opium Wars broke out. In the First Opium War, the Chinese authorities had banned opium, but the United Kingdom forced China to allow British merchants to trade opium with the general population. Smoking opium had become common in the 19th century, and British merchants increased their trade with the Chinese. Trading in opium was (as it is today in the heroin trade) extremely lucrative. As a result of this illegal trade, an estimated two million Chinese people became addicted to the drug. The British Crown (via the treaties of Nanking and Tianjin) took vast sums of money from the Chinese government through this illegal trade, which they referred to as "reparations".
Read more about this topic: Illegal Drug Trade
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)