with the opium-smokers; a walk through the chinese quarter. where the celestials dream away the unhappy hours in an underground den--a chinese drug store and some other curiosities.

War on Drugs. Anti-Chinese Xenophobia Fueled America's First Drug War San Francisco's prohibitionists worried that opium dens were patronized by "young men and women of respectable parentage" as ...

In 'Smoke and Ashes,' Amitav Ghosh draws comparisons between America's modern opioid crisis and the West's flooding of China with opium in the 18th century.

In 1875, having found that many white men and women patronized the local "opium dens," the San Francisco Board of Supervisors attempted to check the "growing evil." To that end, they imposed hefty ...

In 'Smoke and Ashes,' Amitav Ghosh draws comparisons between America's modern opioid crisis and the West's flooding of China with opium in the 18th century.

It was in Javanese ports that Chinese sailors learned the habit of smoking tobacco dipped in Dutch-made liquid opium. They brought the practice back to Chinese port cities, where opium dens ...

The Chinese picked it up quickly, smoking not only tobacco but also opium. Realizing that the popular opium smoking could eventually ruin the country, the then Chinese rulers attempted to ban the ...

“Opium smoking is no longer continued to the back rooms of Chinese laundries. It has gone beyond that now, and finds its home and its white patrons in more luxurious quarters,” the Jamestown ...

Nonetheless, Smoke and Ashes does present an astringent indictment of the “drug-pushing racket” and the “colonial narco-state” associated with that trade. Along the way, Ghosh finds room to advise the ...

Smoke and Ashes explains how opium was primarily consumed in tonic form in India, but because it was smoked in China, it was much more addictive there. The Qing Dynasty banned opium as early as 1729 ...

A riveting new history of opium, a lucrative and destructive flower. Amitav Ghosh’s sweeping, forcefully written ‘Smoke and Ashes’ covers centuries in the life of the plant ...