- According to Hippocrates, the attributes of opium were that it was very useful when used as a narcotic to treat internal diseases and epidemics.
- Alexander the Great introduced opium to the people of Persia and India
- Opium was not popular in the Middle Ages. It was believed to be linked with the Devil. Right after the middle ages, the Portuguese started smoking It and brought back into Europe.
- The Dutch introduced the practice of smoking opium in a tobacco pipe to the Chinese in the 1700s
- In 1750 the British East India Company dominated the opium trade since 1750 because it assumed control of Bengal and Bihar, which are opium districts in India. This shipping dominated the opium trade out of Calcutta to China.
- Morphine was developed in 1803
- China’s government efforts to ban opium since 1729 were that the emperor issued a law which prohibited the smoking of opium and its sale, except under license for use as a medicine.
- The causes for the first Opium War were that Britain forced the opium into China to balance trade between the 2 nations, but tried to cut off the trade because a lot of Chinese became addict to it. Britain took this as a threat and declared war.
- The effects of the first Opium War were that China lost and trade of opium between Britain and China was restored. The society of China degraded thanks to the big amount of addicts that existed.
- China was forced to pay an indemnity, opium importation was legalized, The production of Opium increased in the Southeast of Asia.
- Heroin was developed in 1895, and The Bayer Company coined the name.
- The Chinese were successful in convincing the British to dismantle the India-China opium trade in 1910
- In 1923 the U.S Department’s Narcotic Division banned all legal narcotic sale forcing addicts to buy from illegal street dealers.
opium
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