Opium Legalization Vs. Prohibition In China

With the eradication of the British East India Company’s status as the prominent trader in China, opium, a highly addictive drug, soon found itself being shipped in massive quantities illegally to the city of Canton, China. Fearing an epidemic of rabid drug use in addition to losing control over their silver specie, Chinese officials soon found themselves taking extreme measures to curb the flow of opium into Canton as well as rein in the outflow of their foreign silver. Although several ideas were brought forth to the Imperial court, the two most important schools of thought were legalization and prohibition. A prominent proponent for legalization, Xu Naiji argued that though opium is indeed evil, legalizing is still the better choice. He

Zun maintained that preventing the opium trade would also stem the loss of foreign silver as the Hong merchants would not be able to buy opium with it. He alleged that opium would corrode and destabilize China due to it weakening the purity and rule of law. Zun argued that current prohibition laws were to lax. He reasoned that because officials cared little for the laws so too would the people and the end result would be the masses losing respect in the law. Zun also noted that to legalize opium after placing prohibitions on it would cause China to lose face abroad as many would question why a nation would disavow opium trading just to legalize it shortly afterwards. He thought that if China were to legalize opium trading the people would suffer immensely as landlords and farmers would spend more time cultivating opium for massive profits while ignoring the cultivation of wheat and rye. In the end, Zun believed that preventing trade in opium would ensure welfare of the Chinese government and its

The British argued that their incursion was in fact warranted due to the nature of how British merchants in China operated. Britain noted that its merchants and subjects, with their property, were in the hands of the Chinese government. They willing placed themselves under the jurisdiction of Chinese authority with the understanding that it was in good faith. This trust, Britain argued, was misplaced as violence was committed against them by Chinese officials. Britain maintained that the acts of violence were redundant as the prohibition laws were never truly enforced by the officials before and it did not help that they were reinforced without notice. Britain also complained that the prohibition law was hypocritical. They claimed that Chinese officials were still making profits on the opium trade while British merchants were being seized, along with their cargo. Above all, Britain reasoned that any acts of aggression against its subjects would not be tolerated as well as any attempts to prevent its trade connections to China and India. In the eyes of Britain, the only response to force was