Opium Cultivation Quotes

The problem, therefore, reduced itself to [opium] production in Persia, Turkey, and Jugoslavia. The first of these countries declared that it could not restrict production without a loan of ten million tomans, customs autonomy, and a financial moratorium. The other two said that until other means of livelihood had been found for their peasant populations, production could not be limited.

The East India Company established a monopoly over the production of opium, shortly after taking over Bengal.

The great increase of the contraband opium trade was the cause of frequent comment on the Upper Yangtsze. It seems to parallel what one hears of the liquor-smuggling in America, for I was told that large numbers were being attracted by the great profits, and people of hitherto unimpeachable reputation were engaged in the trade; so that in this way, as well as by the use of the drug, numerous people were being debauched.... Caravans of the drug have been brought over by the soldiers from Yunnan and Kueichow, where the planting has been encouraged and even insisted upon by the officials, who in some cases have taxed it when planted, when in blossom, and when the drug is gathered.

It's going to be really interesting to see what the heroin market does in the next two years or so. One thing you can be pretty sure of. The Afghan peasants who grow poppies won't get rich. The money will end up in places like Dubai.

Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

Although the Chinese had used opium as a medicine, there was no widespread addiction before the British arrived.

No opium is exposed for sale in the shops, probably because it is a contraband article, but it is used with tobacco in all parts of the Empire. The Chinese indeed consider the smoking of opium as one of the greatest luxuries, and if they are temperate in drinking, they are often excessive in the use of this drug.

Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.