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1836, The Opium Debate in China

In Memorials on the Legalization and Elimination of Opium, Xu Naiji and Yuan Yulin argued the reasons for and against legalizing opium. After 154 years it is clear that America has learned nothing from the Memorials arguments. Almost the same type of reasoning has been used during America's prohibition and America's current war on drugs.

Xu Nanji emphasized the legitimate use of Opium as a medicine, just as the defenders of smoking, alcohol and marijuana defend the the legal uses of their killer drugs. Xu Nanji argued that to legalize opium would have a beneficial impact on duties and enable the government to exert some control on the trade forbidding, for example, the use of gold to pay for the opium.  These are very similar to the arguments used by those who opposed the prohibition on liquor, the continued sale of cigarettes and the legalization of drugs, like Marijuana. Xu Naiji also argued that bans won't work.  He used existing facts to show that even the killing of opium users was not a deterrent to the growth of  opium use, just as those in America argue -- and have argued -- against banning alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and other items, like guns, because bans are not effective.  Naiji and Americans note that their countries have large coastlines and it is absurd to think it practical to simply end the use of things by banning them, when there are so many places where the ban cannot be effective.

Yuan Yulin also used the familiar arguments of those who want to ban things.  Opium is really bad and it would be hypocrisy to do anything but ban it.   What matters to those who want to ban things is not the practicality of he ban, the effectiveness of the ban or the practical long term consequences of the ban. What manners to the prohibition forces is right and wrong.  Once the forces of prohibition have determined something is wrong it must be banned.

The Chinese who wanted to prohibit opium, won for the short time.   Their plans for prohibition were spelled out in Commissioner Lin's condescending Letter to Queen Victoria.   The short term victory of the opium prohibition, like those of the alcohol prohibition in the Untied States, failed because of practical matters not considered by the virtuous prohibitters.  In the case of China, ignoring the facts and banning opium led to a war that the Chinese lost.  By 1842 there was no longer any possibility of controlling opium because the Chinese no longer controlled their ports.  The Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking) were forced to cede port cities to the British and, later, to other European powers. Prohibition worked no better for China than it has worked in the USA.

Source Material: A History of World Societies, Fifth Edition, Volume II, Since 1500 by McKay, Hill, Buckler, Ebrey

Source Material: Worlds of History, A Comparative Reader, Volume Two: Since 1400 by Kevin Reilly

Source Material: Primis, Political Science, Ethical Theory of Government, Discourses (ISBN: 0-390-97507-9) published for Skidmore-Hess