“How Britain Got China Hooked on Opium” — Vice, 2020, 5:26 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbHAWNQRV70

Contributed by Mary Scafidi, Cabrini University

The British Empire was one of the biggest drug pushers in history, and this video describes how the British Empire got the Chinese people addicted to opium. In the 1800s, the British were interested in selling more opium grown in colonized India, and their favorite way to do this was through smuggling it into China (even though emperors had banned opium for decades). This eventually resulted in an opium war, and even though the British were illegally trafficking narcotics into China, they demanded restitution from China for destroyed opium. Overall, this is an under-acknowledged part of history that should cause us to be critical of modern representations of drug cultivators, dealers, and the drug trade as a whole. Historically, white people seem to be at the forefront of the drug trade, but our society conveniently forgets this fact. How else might drug history, as well as our current drug problems, be whitewashed?

From the video’s description: VICE World News host Zing Tsjeng delves into her own family history to remember that time the British Empire was one of the worst drug pushers in history and got China hooked on opium.