Lee Feigon misrepresents the events of the 19th Century. He asserts that China was the world`s most powerful nation but was unable to stop drug smuggling or the use of opium among its people.

For nearly a century, widespread Chinese addiction to opium destroyed millions of lives and ravaged a great nation. China’s history of being blighted by drugs can provide the U.S. with insights ...

It was here, in the 19th century, that British ships offloaded their opium onto fast-moving Chinese smuggling boats known as “centipedes”. The town, which in the past two decades has grown ...

The exhibits at the Opium War Museum in Humen include "opium paste" that fueled mass addiction in China in the early 19th century. [Photo by Satarupa Bhattacharjya/China Daily] The Qing ...

The most dangerous illicit drug ever concocted, fentanyl, has turned entire blocks of America’s major cities into the 21st-century ... during the first Opium War between China and Britain.

The imbalance grew until the later 18th century, when Britain found something the Chinese people did want: opium. The illegal drug being used by China's elite suddenly became accessible to the masses.