Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Historical accounts suggest that opium first arrived in China during the Tang dynasty (618–907) as part of the merchandise of Arab traders. [10] Later on, Song Dynasty (960–1279) poet and pharmacologist Su Dongpo recorded the use of opium as a medicinal herb: "Daoists often persuade you to drink the jisu water, but even a child can prepare the yingsu soup."
By 1833, the Chinese opium trade soared to 30,000 chests. [7] British and American merchants sent opium to warehouses in the free-trade port of Canton, and sold it to Chinese smugglers. [8] [10] In 1834, the EIC's monopoly on British trade with China ceased, and the opium trade burgeoned.
China opium den, c. 1896. Illicit cultivation of the opium poppy in China is negligible in provinces such as Yunnan, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and the remote regions of the northwest frontier. Opium produced in these areas is not converted into heroin, but is consumed locally by ethnic minority groups in these isolated areas. [citation needed]
A model of the destruction of opium at Humen. Displayed at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Commissioner Lin and the destruction of opium at Humen, June 1839. The destruction of opium at Humen began on 3 June 1839, lasted for 23 days, and involved the destruction of 1,000 long tons (1,016 t) of illegal opium seized from British traders under the aegis of Lin Zexu, an Imperial Commissioner of ...
In 'Smoke and Ashes,' Amitav Ghosh draws comparisons between America's modern opioid crisis and the West's flooding of China with opium in the 18th century.
Delano made a large fortune smuggling opium into Canton (now Guangzhou), China. [9] [10] Opium, a highly addictive narcotic related to heroin, was illegal in China. By the 1800s, European demand for Chinese luxury products such as silk, tea, porcelain ("china"), and furniture was immense, but Chinese demand for European products was relatively ...
To counter this imbalance, the British East India Company began to grow opium in Bengal and allowed private British merchants to sell opium to Chinese smugglers for illegal sale in China. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried ...
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: Lachryma papaveris) is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy Papaver somniferum. [4] Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which is processed chemically to produce heroin and other synthetic opioids for medicinal use and for the illegal drug trade.