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.

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 ...

China was soundly defeated. Among other outcomes, it ceded the vast port city of Hong Kong to Britain at the end of the First Opium War. Hong Kong returned to China's dominion in 1997.

A scene from 1842 during the first Opium War between China and Britain. Such battles more than 150 years ago were about control over trade, finance, and sovereignty — much like China’s ...

TRUST GETS WEEKLY TRIBUTE Fan-Tan Tables, Lotteries, and Opium Dens Flourish Side by Side -- Police Shut Their Eyes. ... "They are pretty nearly the same men every night," said the Chinese guide.

Dr. W. H. G. Aspland, General Secretary of the International Anti-Opium Association in Peking, says: “In two districts in South Fu-Kien the military authorities are planning to raise $15,000,000 ...

China's anti-smoking movement was first recorded in 1639, when Ming Dynasty (AD 1368－1644) Emperor Chong Zhen issued a national ban on tobacco and stipulated that tobacco addicts be executed. In ...

A key feature of China’s opium epidemic is that it was state-sponsored. In the early 19th century , British merchants wanted to sell Indian-grown opium in China, while Chinese officials ...

From pirates to tea to opium, Eric Jay Dolin's new book, When America First Met China, describes the long and complicated history of the trade relationship between the two countries.