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DaveyGee16 t1_izncxvu wrote

Reply to comment by War_Hymn in The Japanese cigarette brand weaponised against Chinese smokers in wartime by zhumao

Some of your ideas and characterizations are wrong. In fact, pretty much everything you wrote is wrong.

Heroin, cocaine and morphine were not “harder stuff” and weren’t designed for export to China. They were available off the shelf pretty much everywhere in Europe, North America and the rest of the world.

Cocaine didn’t become a controlled drug in the U.S. until 1914, 1920 in the U.K.

Your ideas on heroin are wholesale wrong, it was first synthesized in 1874, it wasn’t commercialized until 1895. It was banned in 1924 in the U.S. but was available off the shelf until then. 1920 in the U.K.

Opium, much the same as the other two, not banned until the 1920s anywhere.

You are conflating a bunch of ideas without proof, drugs weren’t used to control colonial possessions, they were normal every day consumer items everywhere in the West too.

Furthermore, your ideas on the U.S. fighting to stop the drug trade and the U.K. stalling is also wrong, in most cases, the U.K. banned drugs before the U.S. did. An even worse comparison to suggest when you know more on the subject. The U.K. was a signatory to The Hague convention on opium of 1912 which restricted the sale and consumption of opium, including in their trade with other nations and in the colonies, the U.S. was not.

Your ideas on drugs in the golden triangle being because of the French is preposterous. The Golden Triangle appeared because the communist Chinese outlawed the domestic opium trade in southern China, the growers and dealers shifted south in the 1950s following action by the Chinese.

Your ideas on Japan are equally wrong. The Japanese didn’t “flood” colonial India with cocaine, that’s just plain preposterous. Nor did the Japanese play a major part in the Chinese opium trade, you are either reading the wrong material or you aren’t reading well. The Japanese made a fortune from the drug trade in Taiwan after they acquired it with Shimonoseki.

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WhittlingDan t1_izoxizg wrote

>drugs weren’t used to control colonial possessions, they were normal every day consumer items everywhere in the West too.

It was both and still is both, governments and wealthy "organizations" often connected to governments use drugs both for profit and control. Sonetimes control/benefit works both directions such as financing other "darker" expenses and operations while also destabilizing where they are sold. The CIA was behind the Cocaine/Crack epidemic in the US decades ago. It funded many different operations in the US and other countries, it destabilized and financed coups while also destroying black and other minority communities especially in the inner cities. It fed on the desperation and lack of opportunity.

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War_Hymn t1_izpm2p6 wrote

>heroin, cocaine and morphine were not “harder stuff”

You're really going to tell us a glass of whiskey isn't harder hitting than a glass of beer?

The term "harder" is sort of subjective, but I use it here on the basis that heroin/morphine/cocaine are all processed and concentrated products of the natural raw material that they are derived from. Raw opium doesn't contain 100% morphine - it's around 10% by mass.

Refining processes remove the non-psychoactive components and impurities from the base material, isolating /concentrating the components that do have a narcotic effect. For a given dose in mass or volume, heroin or cocaine is more potent than raw opium or coca leaves - cocaine production being the most dramatic change in concentration as the leaves typically contain less than 0.3% active cocaine chloride.

>and weren’t designed for export to China.

Never said they were, just pointing to their presence in the Chinese market. Old-fashion opium was still being imported (and produced domestically) by the ton into China at this time if I recall.

>Your ideas on heroin are wholesale wrong, it was first synthesized in 1874, it wasn’t commercialized until 1895. It was banned in 1924 in the U.S. but was available off the shelf until then. 1920 in the U.K.

I believe I did say "by the start of the 20th century" - if you're unfamiliar with this nomenclature, it means "early-1900s".

>Furthermore, your ideas on the U.S. fighting to stop the drug trade and the U.K. stalling is also wrong, in most cases, the U.K. banned drugs before the U.S.

Maybe, I'm a little vague on my dates and details in this regard. I'll have to reread my sources. Still, the Americans did indeed pushed for wider international collaboration in restricting narcotic trade and production, and they did faced resistance from other nations.

>Your ideas on drugs in the golden triangle being because of the French is preposterous. The Golden Triangle appeared because the communist Chinese outlawed the domestic opium trade in southern China, the growers and dealers shifted south in the 1950s following action by the Chinese.

I agree it's a subjective take open to bias and interpretations from both sides (colonial apologists vs. anti-colonial critics), but it doesn't change the fact that wartime French colonial officials were encouraging cultivation of poppies among local Miao/Hmong farmers for the purpose of producing opium. Whether that encouraged the wider intensive cultivation of opium in post-war Southeast Asia, I leave to more qualified scholars to argue over.

>Your ideas on Japan are equally wrong. The Japanese didn’t “flood” colonial India with cocaine

My sources tell me otherwise.

Excerpt from "Cocaine - An Unauthorized Biography" by Dominic Streatfeild:

->Such was the extent of the Japanese-Indian cocaine trade that in 1930 the Home Office despatched a Mr J Slattery, OBE, to the Far East to find what was going on. His secret report is in the Public Records Office at Kew. Slattery discovered that much of the cocaine being shifted bore the labels of Fujitsuru, Buddha, or Elephant brands, yet none of these were recognized manufacturers...Clearly of the impression that this cocaine all originated in Japan, Slattery could obtain no assistance from the Japanese authorities. Slattery had the wrappings of a Fujitsuru cocaine package analysed to see who made the paper. He was informed, and it was later corroborated, that it was made by the Fuji Company of Japan, and the string that held the package together was also Japanese.

>Nor did the Japanese play a major part in the Chinese opium trade

Please be aware I'm talking about Japan in the larger context of the 19th/20th century narcotic trade in China, so beyond the scope of the earlier Opium Wars period. As the original post hinted, the Japanese DID peddled opiates and other narcotics to the Chinese, something that the Japanese culprits faced charges for during the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

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