Controversies in Chinese history -- Opium controversies

Although we've never met, Frank Dikotter is a Chinese history scholar whose work I have always enjoyed and appreciated. He writes well, has an interesting perspective, chooses interesting subjects, and cites and researches well.

Which brings me to his work, Narcotic Culture, A history of drugs in China (2004, University of Chicago Press ). Now don't get me wrong. As I write this I'm still reeling from an interaction with a lying drug addict that cost me a great deal of aggravation, expense, and legal hassles, so I am absolutely not soft on drugs. Quite frankly, I've even got a problem with all this emphasis and money used for getting naloxene in to the hands of people who might  come across a narcotics overdose victim. I mean, which part of "don't try heroin. It's bad for you," did they not understand? Is it really necessary to work to save them? Might the world be better off without them?

But having said that, Dikotter has some interesting perspectives on the traditional portrayal of opium use in traditional, early modern China. (Say the 17th century AD and on.)    

Controversy Number One --"Was China victimized by foreign governments and business interests who poisoned their spirit and nation with a previously unknown drug called opum, a highly addictive substance that served no purpose but to poison the hearts and minds of the Chinese people?"

According to Dikotter, "In Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, it was primarily used as a painkiller before the discovery of aspirin or penicilin in the twentieth century. Opium was extremely effective in fighting fever, blocking dysentery, relieving pain, suppressing coughs, and abating hunger. negative represnations often confused the medical symptoms of the diseases against which opium was taken as a palliative with the imagined physiological effects of 'addiction." (Dikotter, p. 3, by the way, I have no idea why he put "addiction" in quotes. Remember kids, only losers try heroin. Seriously.)

Controversy Number Two --"Opium was an exotic drug, used primarily, almost exclusively in the far east and should be associated with that region and the insidious vices of its exotic cultures and peoples."

According to Dikotter. "Historians of China rarely mention that any respectable person in Europe or America could walk into a pharmacy in 1900 and routinely buy a range of hashish pastes, exotic psychedelics, or morphine (complemented by a handy injection kit), and that opium products were widely on sale in Britain." (Again, Dikotter, page 3),

Of course, Dikotter discusses these issues more fully.

(And a tip of the hat to Sherman Cochrane, my advisor at Cornell, whose classes on controversies in Chinese history helped prepare me more fully for digging deeper and exploring the field and its issues.)