Narcotic culture : a history of drugs in China

352 Pages·2016·17.986 MB·English

by  Lars Peter Laamann, Frank Dikötter, Xun Zhou

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To this day, the perception persists that
China was a civilization defeated by
imperialist Britain’s most desirable trade
commodity, opium - a drug that turned the
Chinese into cadaverous addicts in the iron
grip of dependence. Britain, in an effort to
reverse the damage caused by opium
addiction, launched its own version of the
“war on drugs,’ which lasted roughly sixty
years, from 1880 to World War II and the
beginning of communism. But, as Narcotic
Culture brilliantly shows, the real scandal in
Chinese history was not the expansion of
the drug trade by Britain in the early
nineteenth century, but rather the failure of
the British to grasp the consequences of
prohibition.
In a stunning historical reversal, Frank
Dikotter, Lars Laamann, and Zhou Xun tell
this different story of the relationship
between opium and the Chinese. They
reveal that opium actually had few harmful
effects on either health or longevity; in fact,
it was prepared and appreciated in highly
complex rituals with inbuilt constraints
preventing excessive use. Opium was even
used as a medicinal panacea in China
before the availability of aspirin and
penicillin. But as a result of the British
effort to eradicate opium, the Chinese
turned from the relatively benign use of
that drug to heroin, morphine, cocaine, and
countless other psychoactive substances.
Narcotic Culture provides abundant evidence
that the transition from a tolerated opium
culture to a system of prohibition produced
a “cure” that was far worse than the disease.
Delving into a history of drugs and their
abuses, Narcotic Culture is in part revisionist
history of imperial and twentieth-century
Britain and a sobering portrait of the
dangers ofp rohibition.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2022 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/narcoticculturenOO000diko

NARCOTIC CULTURE

FRANK DIKOTTER
LARS LAAMANN
ZHOU XUN
Narcotic Culture
A History of Drugs in China
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
C. Hurst & Co., London, England
© Frank Dikotter 2004
All rights reserved. Published 2004
Printed in Hong Kong
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 12345
ISBN: 0-226-14905-6 (cloth)
Cataloging-in-publication data have been
requested from the Library of Congress.
© The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48—1992
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors acknowledge with gratitude grant R000239272
from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which
allowed them to carry out the research for this book from start
to finish. The ESRC is not responsible for any of the views ex-
pressed in this book. Zhou Xun and Lars Laamann worked full
time on all aspects of the project as research fellows, although I, as
the principal applicant, bear final responsibility for all errors and
omissions.
A number of people have generously shared their ideas and
suggestions with us and read and commented on draft versions, in
particular Stephen Averill, Michigan State University; Inga-Britt
Bengtsson, Sahlgrenska University Hospital; Gregor Benton, Uni-
versity of Wales, Cardiff; Virginia Berridge, London School of
Tropical Hygiene; Jerome Ch’en, York University, Toronto; Ger-
vase Clarence-Smith, School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London; Mark Elvin, Australian National University;
David Faure, Oxford University; Sander Gilman, University of
Illinois; David Hodson, Centre for Criminology, University of
Hong Kong; Virgil Ho, Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology; Mike Jay, London; Bill Jenner, Australian National
University; Alfred Lin, University of Hong Kong; Richard
Newman, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of
London; Geoffrey Pearson, London School of Hygiene and Trop-
ical Medicine; John Richards, Duke University; Edward Slack, East-
ern Washington University; Harold Traver, University of Hong
Kong; Frances Wood, The British Library; Zhou Zhaoxi, Chengdu.
London, April 2003 ED:
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