The Spinoff Opium thread

Mod note: New thread created out of offtopic posts in another thread, so abrupt start, plus some of the posts may not make sense without the original thread reference.

The original thread the posts were extracted from is
unplugging the ganges...

singsub:
apologies huzoor - i'm kinda hijacking your thread
have got a couple of url's i wish to share as well -
and heck - the thread title suggests
it can accomodate just about anything on india


the first:
" ... there's a method in the ensuing madness.
against all odds - things actually get done!"



the second:

cap'n and dd - am sure both of you'd enjoy reading 'sea of poppies' sometime amitav ghosh is known for his excruciatingly detailed research!
nayan: buy it today



:brishti

I too find strange that he was completely unaware of it. Surely he would have known of the East India Company's shameful role in the lead up to the Opium Wars. Even I know about that, and I only have an amateur interest in history!

haylo

if the man is acknowledging unawareness - what is the problem?
personally - i dont even know whats going on in the street next to mine
so what?


:brishti

Oh, no problem at all!

The book sounds interesting, I was just surprised that a historian had not heard of something that I thought was both common knowledge and a corner stone of an important period in Indian history.

I guess you have to hype a book. And perhaps he is considering that the general public doesn't read economic history for which this was an old and hoary controversy..

I couldn't get the first link to work?

Men. Next he will proclaim innocence.



-I can't open the link too, but going by the previous posts-

More seriously, it is surprising how many Indians do not know about the opium 'trade', or the involvement of the forefathers of one of the biggest Indian industrial houses today.. the Tata's.. in it.

And it wasn't just the East India Company, it was the British crown, too. If I remember accurately, the British Government was involved in the trade for more than sixty years after 1857 in India. First the shareholders of the East India Company, and then the Queen, got rich on it. And so did the Tatas start building their fortune then, amongst other 'loyal' and influential Indians, on the back of opium and its transportation .

Which one, the ABC News one in post #2? It's a video link, may not open on slow connections or if you have it blocked or so.

Or you mean the very first Uncyclopedia one in post #1? That appears to be a mirror site, it opened with me before, but not now, probably overloaded. It was a typical (and typically hilarious) Uncyclopedia "article," and nothing to do with anything so remotely serious as the opium trade of yore. Let's see, here it is on the actual site: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Ganges



(People might like their caption on opium for that matter: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Opium )

I couldn't open the uncylopedia or brishti's BBC one.

If I hadn't clicked on that, I would never have learned of "Kitten Huffing". Lets hope Birds doesn't read that one!

Of the original http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Ganges article, I particularly liked the following...

I think you guys might be forgetting the fact that opium and it's derivatives had a very crucial medical purpose for many thousands of years. That India and the East India Company were huge producers of it shouldn't at all cause the nefarious tone that seems to predominate at the moment.

Morphine and codiene weren't developed until the early 1800's, so raw opium, and it's extract- laudanum, were the only efficient pain killers in the world up to that point.

Um, I think the history of both the British and Dutch (and possibly some other countries') East India Companies don't exactly betray their benign humanitarian intentions in the trade. What was essentially a form of proto-capitalism and monopolization, along with the trade in plenty another exotic goody at the time. And an addicted market is about as good as it gets of course, the same went, and still does, for sugar and coffee and tobacco and the likes. If you read about the history of the latter three, there was nothing at all innocent or care-free about it. It was, and still is, a deliberate attempt to monopolize markets (to the detriment of traditional local agricultural systems of course) and get the home market hooked, instead.

Examples abound of Indonesian farmers under the Dutch being forcibly barred from growing anything but poppies (or nutmeg, or cloves, or pepper, or... even on islands that wouldn't sustain such crops), leading to famine and mass suicide and whatnot (or to the occasional uprising of course. Guess what we called such people back then, say 1-200 years ago? Terrorists, I kid you not. The word is no new invention.) For the three already-mentioned acceptable drugs, the history of South America presents an even sorrier picture of exploitation if at all possible.

I believe the opium situation (and again some other crops no doubt) was no different or even worse in China, and in fact partly shaped its modern history, or certainly its particular process of decolonization. Anyway, no, sir, don't get me started.

Grikoo, the produce of opium was the mainstay that kept the east india company going for 50 years in this country, and the crown for another 50 odd. This didnt happen with medicinal use quantities. Hundreds of tonnes was being smuggled into China (illegally) annually.

I am not even talking yet about the Opium addicts and wars in China. It wasn't medicinal, China was growing enough for medicinal use

And all this happened while opium was severely restricted in Britain, though not illegal.

The morality of this exercise is always hidden by the fact that the British made the rules, so it wasn't technically illegal.

Neither was slavery in the US. Or signs on Indian hill station mall roads (central street, for want of a better phrase) and clubs in cities saying 'Dogs and Indians not allowed'

Not that long ago, either. My father remembers them.

Implying that this (opium) was not nefarious seems to indicate that it was somehow ok.

Yes, it was legal.

Legality is nothing.

Actually, yes it should.

The role of the British in this whole sorry trade is shameful and had long reaching consequences.

hmmm....


the links - for them who couldnt access it above:

the first one: abc news [ its a video so may take a while ]
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437


the second one: bbc interview
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7460682.stm



:brishti

I'm not saying it was totally innocent, just that historically speaking, opium has primarily served a critical medical function for thousands of years.

Of course trade in any addictive substance leads to abuses of various sorts.

I'm not sure that the statement that MOST of the opium was being grown for illicit purposes is truly accurate. I have no exact data on the subject, so can't really say, but I find it highly unlikely.

My understanding of the opium trade is that while abuse of the substance has always been an issue, it has never be THAT big of an issue, at least not until stronger compounds like morphine and heroin were developed.

Feel free to provide data indicating otherwise. I would genuinely be interested to see it.