Essay Sample on Effects of the Rapid Spread of Opium in China

Introduction

As China has banned all kinds of drugs for personal utilization today, it actually experienced a long-term opium crisis in the 19th century.

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This drug opium made the most harmful and poisonous effects in that period of time and was of ruin to the people and the economy of China generally even at a higher percentage than any other drug that ever existed before or maybe any war that had been and even after the era as well. Considering that opium is a drug it is the addictive type. As a whole, it had the utmost power to impact negatively on a society at large which was a huge effect apart from its effect being also merely individual. Articles and beliefs had it that the drug got introduced to China earlier even before the last days of the 19th century but it severely started prevailing in a faster way (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 12).

Opium reached its maximum exportation from Britain and India in the period of the 19th century. (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 12). People now started cultivating the drug and a large number of users were available as well. (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 12). However, the rate at which people consumed opium was unreasonably fast and unpredictable of addiction. Both levels of the nobles of China and even the rulers without any doubt believed that influence would befall them.

The considerable growth of opium habit amongst Chinese in the 19th century actually caused three main negative impacts. They caused the loss of wealth in China through motivating a large amount of opium exportation from British and Indian government. Secondly, discrediting the views of the anti-opium forces and demonstrating the harmlessness of opium and lastly stimulating the domestic market of opium, which caused greater opium supply for people of third class level?

Britain and India kept exporting Opium drug into China and this stimulated the nobles to highly consume it and in that case, they were able to counter the rate of exchange with silver which was the imported product of China (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 11-12). He shows the statistics of The Imperial Maritime Customs Service on the amount of opium imported and the taxes collected as 20,000 piculs smuggling into China by estimation (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 12). High demand for the drug was the main trigger to the high levels of drug importation into the country.

When the huge amount of opium was consumed by Chinese, this exported "commodity" was of help to the British government to exchange more silver. As recorded in the Coates' article at the time, the trade of opium and some other commodities improved following Britain to make "massive granites with huge iron doors" to store the silver in Macao (Coates 130-131). Never the less, there was still a challenge based on storing silver in Macao due to limited physical space, making the situation to need more land to store the silver (Coates 131). Therefore, the import of silver was handled in the same ship that brought in the product (Coates 131).

This evidence was specific enough to show how great the amount of silver was gained by the British government because of opium. Due to the imbalance of the trade on importation and exportation, silver was sucked out of China in high amounts(Coates 130). The amount of storage of silver was the way to estimate a country's economy. As a result of China's great outflowing of silver, both its economy and the military statue would be affected because China would have no money to buy the commodity or weapons it really needed. Therefore, China gradually was becoming bankrupt and running out of money due to the rapid influence of silver.

Moreover, British and Indian power discredited the views of the anti-opium forces and demonstrated that opium was a harmless drug. Two forces had different views of the prevalence of opium and its functions. By Lodwick, the majority of the advocates for the continuation of the trade were actually either opium planters or sellers or officials of the British Indian government (Lodwick, "The Pro-Opium" 84).

They were not only these businessmen, but there were also medical doctors who argued that opium was harmless who belonged to the Indian government or officers of the British army in India as well (Lodwick, "The Pro-Opium" 84). For example, the Britain consular service illustrated that moderating the opium smoking rate was not at all so bad because they argued that only an excess of it caused the evil effects that prevailed and even go ahead to make a comparison of the opium smokers in China and the alcohol drinkers in the United Kingdom. (Lodwick, "The Pro-Opium" 97). However, Lodwick argued that England itself had classified the opium as a "dangerous poison", and now wondered why they still kept advocating for its harmlessness for another race(Lodwick, "The Pro-Opium" 96).

Domestic opium market was stimulated by the great importation from foreign countries. As the imported opium made great money through the trade, the domestic greedy wicked businessmen and farmers started to try to share this considerably profitable opium market. They ignored the dangers of opium and ran a risk to start a domestic market. By the late 1880s, opium became a major crop in China and even replaced food crops (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 12). Many farmers planted opium poppies on their best valuable land for the reason that more money could be made by selling it, which also resulted in the shortage of food crops frequently (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 12-13).

This evidence became a show that the population had an addiction to the opium at that time, for the market was always stimulated by the consumption. With the great prevalence and continuous increase of opium at that time, farmers would rather plant opium instead of crops, which were necessities. At the same time, since the cultivation of opium in China was illegal, much of the opium was smuggled to avoid customs officials when transported to the other provinces (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 13). Thus, the government was not able to collect taxes, which made this trade incur more profits. Import statistics from Imperial Maritime Customs Service showed a decline in the importation of opium in the late 19th century, which attributed to the rising domestic cultivation since the number of addicts was increasing at that time (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 13). It was also reported by the commissioner of Customs that domestic opium was 30 per cent cheaper, though it had less strength(Lodwick, "Opium in China" 14). Therefore, the domestic market not only caused easier accessibility but also broke the limit that the poor people could afford opium. It then spread to wider levels of people.

The stimulation of the domestic market was an inevitable progress that would finally happen due to the sudden increase of the consumption of opium, because there were always unscrupulous businessmen, no matter from which countries, who were not ready to give up an opportunity to make money even when this trade was to hurt Chinese people themselves. In a word, the rapid spread of opium motivated the construction of the illegal domestic opium market.

For the social harm, since an addicted man needed money to support his habit of opium, when his income was insufficient, he would then sell his assets, and gradually sell his children, his wife to gain money to buy more opium, and he would finally go on the way as a beggar, until he died. (Lodwick, "Opium in China" 23). From this, it was shown that opium would not only destroy a man 's body, but also his family. All of this is as a result of opium and the abundant real tragedies that happened in China were caused by the spread of opium and most especially its access to lower classes.

The effects of the rapid increase of opium in China helped to explain the decline of China in the 19th century. Prevalent opium addiction in the 19th century is one of the signs that marked this declination. It was just within sixty years that made one-third of people in a great country as China addict to opium (Park 960).

It also shows the cruelty of the British capitalists at that time that earned the money regardless of people's pain, as well as Chinese sellers themselves. Although at times the reason for this situation was always attributed to Chinese themselves, the major reason should be that the British and Indian government tried to make a profit through the exportation of opium to China but ignored the injuries to Chinese people.

The effects caused by this trade included continuous loss of money in China due to the misunderstanding of opium being regarded as a harmless drug and the stimulation of domestic illegal market. As a result, China became one of the countries that had most opium addicts in a short time and these negative effects push China, a once powerful country, on a much worse way that finally destroyed itself.

Work Cited

Austin Coates. THE FIRST OPIUM CRISES Macao and the British, 1637-1842 Published by Hong Kong University Press. (2009)

James L. Maxwell. Opium Smoking In China The British Medical Journal Published by BMJ

KATHLEEN L. LODWICK. Opium in China in the Late Nineteenth Century Crusaders Against Opium University Press of Kentucky(1996)

R. K. Newman. Opium Smoking in Late Imperial China: A Reconsideration Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct. 1995), pp. 765-794 Published by Cambridge University Press

W. H. Park. The Use Of Opium In China The British Medical Journal Published by BMJ