The Opium Wars

The British opium trade in China started the world’s very first drug war, it was in the 19Th century. It was called the Opium War, many people also refer to it as the Anglo-Chinese War. Opium is made from the juice of poppy seedpods, and used to produce heroin.The opium came from from the flower called poppies and the British made the Chinese addicted to it so that they could get the Chinese could trade with the British. Opium is used today for many things like morphine, heroine, codeine , mescalin and opium. These substances are some what like sedatives but more like pain relievers. The bad part about them is that they are highly addictive.

It was used fist to treat certain disorders or diseases like dysentery, cholera, as well as diarrhea. Almost 2 million pounds of opium was sold in China each year, opium lowered a large amount of the Chinese population. In the 19th century, 10 percent of the Chinese population was smoking opium. This also affected China's economy, due to the large amount of resources, especially silver, flowing out of the country to pay for the opium. The Opium Wars caused the victimization of China by foreign powers for many years. Until 1949 and the victory of Mao Zedong and communism that the unequal treaties signed between the Chinese government and the foreign power. It was also after 1949 that China took back all the ports, except for Hong Kong. Hong Kong remained a British territory until 1997.