Why Did America Push for the Global Prohibition of Opium in the Early 20th Century - Coursework Example

Why did America push for the Global Prohibition of Opium in the early 20th Century? Why did America push forthe Global Prohibition of Opium in the early 20th Century? Introduction: Background into the Opium Trade Regardless of their level of development, most societies are noted to have used a number of different drugs for recreation, medicine and religion. Opium which was discovered and eventually domesticated during the prehistoric times in the region around the Mediterranean basin, \eventually became a key trade item between Egypt and Cyprus sometime during the second millennium B.C. Once opium was introduced in China, it managed to gain a significant role in formal pharmacopoeia. The modern era in the global opium trade effectively began in 1773 when then British Governor-General of Bengal worked to establish a monopoly over the sale of opium. His efforts saw Britain actively promote the export of Indian opium, while all along defying Chinese drug laws and in the process causing Britain to fight two wars in a concerted bid to try and open up China’s drug market for all its merchants. During the 1970’s, a large number of Chinese immigrants started arriving in the United States in search for better jobs. Beyond their exemplary work ethics, many of these Chinese nationals also introduced the opium smoking habit in the United States. While the United States at first showed relatively very little interest in the use of opium, this trend was to eventually change and cause the country to engage in a number of measures designed to try and curb opium usage across the country. This paper will critically analyze the introduction of opium usage in the United States by Chinese immigrants, the government interventions that were introduced to try and curb opium usage in the country as well as look into establishing some of the reasons behind the push by America calling for the global prohibition of the drug during the 20th Century. Key Terms: Yellow Menace, Harrison Narcotics Act, balance of trade, smuggling of opium, Nanjing Treaty, First Opium war. The Yellow Menace and Opium use in the United States The large numbers of Chinese immigrants that were arriving in the United States during the 1970’s were forced to endure severe racism. These early Chinese-Americans were often forced to take on low paying, and often very brutal jobs such as the building of the railroad network tracks that were fast becoming the main backbone of American industry and expansion. According to Kuhn (2008), these Chinese-American workers formed insular communities that greatly limited their interactions with the then rather deeply racist White American majority. However, due to their interactions with White Americans as they worked for them as laborers, the interaction between the two communities eventually increased and with this development, the idea of smoking opium eventually grew within the consciousness of White America (UNODC, 2010). The more daring of these White Americans would often visit the Chinese smoking parlors so as to indulge in this new intoxicating fad. At first, the mixing of the two racial groups primarily involved adventurous young men sneaking into the Chinese communities with little objection from the general public. However increasing numbers of White women started to frequent the opium parlors. In 1890, W. Hearst who was an infamous newspaper publisher began publishing a series of articles targeted at the yellow menace. In the articles, Hearst held that Chinese men were now using opium to seduce white women. At the time, the American public harbored a rather deep dislike for the Chinese who many feared would eventually overrun America and these articles served to harden the overall public attitude towards opium and its usage. The response to opium usage in the country varied between the local jurisdictions with some making it illegal for the Chinese community to opium while making it legal for White people. In other communities, opium usage among the Whites was illegalized while the Chinese were allowed to continue using the drug. The federal government was prompted into creating tighter opium controls due to increasing opium addiction concerns. The sale of opium containing products that were being sold as elixirs and cure-alls, had led to the emergenc ritcles .mber of vargence of an opium addict population that primarily consisted of middle and upper class white middle-aged women (Banks, 2010). These women who had accidentally become opium addicts had for the most part become addicted as a result of using popular patented medicines, which at the time did not have any labels that clearly identified their products. Goldberg (2014), points out that to help it in effectively combating the growing accidental addiction to opium, the federal government responded by creating a number of acts such as the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. In line with this particular Act, all products were required to have labels that identified the quantity and presence of various drugs such as opium and cocaine. However the success of these acts was rather limited as it quickly become clear that not all opium users had accidentally stumbled into the habit; a rather significant majority of these individuals genuinely wanted to simply get high. Between 1905 and 1919, a number of additional federal laws were passed that had been designed to further restrict the use and sale of opium. Some of these laws included the banning of certain opium imports (McCoy and Scarano, 2009). Another measure that used by the United States to try and reduce opium use in the country was the enactment of the Harrison Narcotics Act. As it was unconstitutional for the government to simply outlaw the use and sale of drugs, this Act used the ingenious means of requiring everyone that was involved in opium to be registered and to pay a tax (Fish, 2006). The amount of tax payments varied as pharmacists and doctors were only required to pay a registration fee, while other people were required to pay a high prohibitive tax on all their sales. This had the effect of restricting the use of opiates and cocaine to medical professionals only. Those who were either unable or even unwilling to pay the tax were charged with tax evasion, this is in addition to their being imprisoned or heavily fined in the event that there were found to have sold the restricted drug. This measure allowed for the federal government to defend itself as acting within the constitution as it was just exercising its power to tax as had been constitutionally granted to it. According to Ahmad (2007), the federal government valiantly sought for the abolition of opium on a global scale in a concerted effort to attempt and solve the raging opium problem at home. The push by the United States federal government for the global prohibition of opium during the 20th Century is seen to have been in line with the country’s domestic laws that worked to curtail opium usage and sale within the United States (McCoy, 2009). The United States and the Opium Trade Another reason as to why the United States sought for the global prohibition of opium during the 20th century was driven by trade concerns. For a long time, western traders including a large number of traders from the United States had continually sought for a large variety of Chinese products including its tea, furniture and silk, however these traders found the trade balance to not be in their favor as there were relatively very few products that the Chinese required from the West. The Manchu Emperors were of the strong belief that the middle kingdom was already in possession of everything that was worth having and as a result of this; there was actually no need for barbarian manufactured goods in the Empire (Hanes and Sanello, 2002; Fay, 1997). The trade relationship between America and China is noted to have begun as early as 1784 and primarily relied on a number of North American exports such as sandalwood, furs and ginseng. Of concern however was the fact that America interest in Chinese products largely outstripped the Chinese appetite for these American exports (Waley, 1982). To help them in reversing the balance of trade, the American traders adopted the tactics that had been employed by British traders and they soon started smuggling opium to China to supplement their exports. Musto (1999) and Hiscock (2012) note that since the late eighteenth century, British traders had engaged in the profitable practice of shipping Indian opium to China. Other than the health problems that were usually related to opium addiction, the increasing trade in smuggled opium meant that for the first time, China started importing more than it was able to export (Jennings, 1997). The smuggling of opium into China by the British eventually culminated in the First Opium War in which after the British had managed to win a series of several naval conflicts, they were able to make a large number of demands on steadily weakening Qing Government of China in the Nanjing Anglo-Chinese Treaty (Zheng, 2005). In a bid not to be outdone, the United States negotiators sought to try and conclude a similar treaty with the Chinese government and in the process guarantee the United States many of the favorable terms that had been awarded to the British. The Chinese readily agreed these treaties in an effort to keep all the different foreigners on an equal footing (Lovell, 2011). The agreement that were reached between China and the Western powers following the end of the Opium Wars have come to be known as the unequal treaties as they worked to give foreigners a highly privileged status in addition to extracting concessions from the Chinese (Li, Teng, and Ingalls, 1956). It was rather ironic that the Qing government had initially supported the clauses providing for most-favored nation and extraterritoriality in the first treaties as they believed that these clauses would help to keep the foreigners inline. According to Baumler (2001), the treaties also had the effect of changing the Chinese foreign policy system which had previously worked under a tribute system. Under the tribute system, foreigners that wished to trade with China had been required to first being a tribute to the emperor so as to acknowledge the overall superiority of the Chinese culture as well as the ultimate superiority of the Chinese ruler (Chien-Nung, 1962). Under the treaties, European powers refused to make any of these required trade acknowledgements and instead demanded that China forcibly adheres to Western diplomatic practices. The treaty signed between the United States and China was longer as compared to the British version and it was designed to include all the major points of the Treaty of Nanjing as well as add a number of issues that were of particular interest to the United States. Some of the sections of the treaty that were of special interest to the Americans included Article 17 which worked to protect the interests of American missionaries working in China. Article 18 of this treaty allowed for the Americans who were currently living in China to employ Chinese tutors to teach them the language, this practice had previously been forbidden by the Chinese government. A key difference between the British and the American Treaties was that under the American Treaty, the United States was of the agreement that anyone that was found to be involved in the smuggling of contraband or in the opium trade would be unconditionally prosecuted under Chinese law (Allerfeldt, 2011). This was however with the exception that the treaty allowed for Americans working in China to be afforded the benefit of extraterritoriality. Under this provision, any Americans found to have engaged in criminal activity would not be subjected to the jurisdiction of the local law; instead these individuals would be tried and eventually punished by American officials in China. As America was busy banning the importation of opium and opium products in the country, other forces working against the opium trade were rapidly gaining force. The Chinese government had for long remained deeply opposed to the opium trade as this trade was responsible for having caused millions of its people to become addicted to the drug, and destroyed what had been a positive trade balance in China’s favor (Zhou, 1999). The United States saw the ending of the opium trade to China as a lucrative business opportunity. This was because if China were to stop the buying of opium which it did at great expense to itself, it would in the process have more monetary reserve which can subsequently be spent on the purchase of other imports such as American goods (George and Page, 2004; Cherry, 2002). Conclusion The American push for the global prohibition of opium is seen to have been driven by two main factors, one of this being that the federal government was attempting to try and reduce the growing popularity of opium in the country. This growing popularity of opium had resulted in causing a large number of White Americans to become opium addicts. Another reason as to why America sought to push for the global prohibition of opium was as a result of its aim to try and improve trade with China. America believed that if the trade in opium was to come to an end, the substantial amount of money that China usually spent in buying opium could be channeled towards the purchase of American produced goods. Although a number of countries such as the Indian government did not initially support the international prohibition of opium as they were making good profits from the trade (Wright, 2013), a series of international conventions that were signed in 1909 and 1911 between the United Kingdom, China, the United States as well as other nations eventually led to the successful restriction of the opium trade. Bibliography Ahmad, D. L. 2007. The opium debate and Chinese exclusion laws in the nineteenth-century American West. Reno: University of Nevada Press. Allerfeldt, K. 2011. Crime and the Rise of Modern America: A History from 1865–1941. Routledge. Banks, N. T. 2010. AIDS, opium, diamonds, and empire: The deadly virus of international greed. New York: iUniverse, Inc. Baumler, A. 2001. Modern China and opium: A reader. Ann Arbor: The Univ. of Michigan Press. Cherry, A. L. 2002. Substance abuse: A global view. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Greenwood Press. Chien-Nung, L. 1962. 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