Nonmedicinal Use Of Opium Dens

All I could see was black, but I could hear everything around me. There were two languages being spoken. I could hear some English, but mainly Indian. One man said, “let me look inside.” Then a lock ticked and a rush of light immediately hit my face. There they were, the three men who have been talking this whole time. One man from the British side, an Indian translator, and an Indian merchant. The British man and the Indian merchant shook hands, and the British man brought out a barrel of liquor for the merchant. The British man picked me up, tied me to his belt, and had his crew take the chest that I was in back to their ship. A crewmember asked why they needed so much of this stuff, and the British man said, “It is one of the only …show more content…
They argued that opium was difficult to control because there were many traders who could sell as much as they wanted. The most significant problem they discussed was that they could not handle all of the opium addicts. One upside of opium was that it was proven to have positive medicinal effects. However, the nonmedicinal uses were very harmful. They came to a conclusion that it should be banned for recreational use, but still be allowed for medicinal use. Public opium dens were banned as well. The Emperor of Guangzhou then communicated with the Chinese government, and opium was officially banned in China for non medicinal …show more content…
I was always safe with Lin Tse Hsu, but I could hear cannons firing and buildings breaking. Since the British easily took over many coastal cities and ports, the Chinese knew that they would not win, so they surrendered. The surrender badly affected China. It was a national wound to them. They fought on their own land to take away opium, but they could not win the fight. I noticed that many of Lin Tse Hsu’s friends looked disappointed after the war. Along with having an emotional impact, the physical impact on China was huge. Just outside of Lin Tse Hsu’s house were buildings and houses with holes through the middle and debris scattered around. There must have been hundreds if not thousands of cannonballs fired through the city. And to think all of the fighting and destruction was over something that came from a flower. The British seemed to really love having Chinese people smoking opium because they depended on it. Many British leaders favored the opium trade. However, courts were