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PeakTrader:

Opium in 19th century China:

As more and more addicts were created, Emperor Dao guang (1821-1850) of the Qing Dynasty became alarmed. He ordered that Guangdong (Canton), the only port then open to foreigners, be closed to all opium traffic.

But British captains evaded the edict by smuggling opium into China with the help of local pirates.

Opium presently became so widespread that by 1838, officials in Guangdong and Fujian were notifying the Imperial government that nine people out of ten in these provinces were addicts.

The Emperor responded by naming as High Commissioner to Canton, a most extraordinary man, Lin Zexu. Lin was given strict orders to rid the country of opium.

In a letter to Queen Victoria which was never sent, Commissioner Lin chided:

“… so long as you do not take it (opium) yourselves, but continue to make it and tempt the people of China to buy it, you will be showing yourselves careful of your own lives, but careless of the lives of other people, indifferent in your greed for gain to the harm you do to others: such conduct is repugnant to human feelings …”

After confiscating and destroying the opium stocks and pipes being sold by Chinese merchants, Lin put pressure on all merchant ships in the harbour carrying the drug to deliver their opium stores to him. Although these stores were publicly disposed of, it did not restrain the British as he had hoped.

One tension led to another, finally erupting in the war of 1839 to 1842, called the Opium War by the Chinese. It was an epithet bitterly resented by the British, who piously maintained that the war’s purpose was to teach the Chinese a lesson in free trade.

Just what kind of trade was meant was obvious from the swarm of opium boats which followed the Royal Navy upstream to Nanjing, where the Qing Dynasty was forced to sign a treaty opening China to trade.

Peace had barely been concluded when the opium boats began to hawk their wares: ‘Opium is on sale very cheap at Sui Shan – an opportunity not to be missed.’

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Norman, yes, they seem neither interested in history nor reality.

The Chinese exchanged valuable goods, e.g. silver, tea, silk, spices, etc., for opium, and even sold their children.

They’d rather consume opium than work, or even eat, while their families, who depended on them, suffered.

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Duracomm says: “So why the support of the utterly failed, destructive, bloated, government nanny state program known as the war on drugs?”

Why should I be inconvenienced, because someone who needs a nanny doesn’t have one?

Or, how would you like a much bigger nanny state to take care of millions of drug users and addicts, who never grew up?

Also, despite enormous propaganda by the pro-legalization crowd, the U.S. has been winning the War on Drugs by preventing millions of drug users, reducing drug use rates, and saving trillions of dollars in social costs:

U.S. Illegal Drug Use Down Substantially from 1970s
17 April 2012

“Drug use in the United States “has dropped substantially over the past thirty years,” thanks to local, state and federal government efforts, as well as international cooperation.

“The rate of Americans using illicit drugs today is roughly one-third the rate it was in the late ’70s.

More recently, there has been a 40 percent drop in current cocaine use and meth use has dropped by half.””

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Legalized Drugs: Dumber Than You May Think:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/legalized-drugs-dumber-you-may-think_642178.html

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http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/11/moral-authority-in-us-drug-policy-is-being-reclaimed-by-the-american-people-and-message-is-echoing-around-the-world/#comments

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