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Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China. FRANK DIKÖTER, LARS LAAMANN, ZHOU XUN (Hurst & Company, London) xi 319 pp. (2004) Hurst & Company: London.

BP Review by: Abu Hajal

An exciting and controversial book, "Narcotic Culture" is a study of the impact of Opium on the economic, social, medical, and mercantile life of Imperial China over the past three centuries. The conclusions are contentious but the arguments are compelling. Aware that his claims contradict the received wisdom of countless historians, politicians and missionaries, the author is forceful and unequivocal in his judgment and his message can be summarised in three main claims. Firstly, Diköter's study of opium use in Imperial China shows that it was not opium use that sounded the death knell for Chinese civilisation and independence. Secondly it was not Britain or its merchants who introduced let alone forced opium on to the Chinese people. Thirdly this study shows that opium culture was in no way degenerate or destructive but on the contrary the habitual and controlled use of opium invigorated and enriched Chinese society and provided various health and apparently, nutritional benefits to those who indulged in opium use.

Professor Frank Diköter is a lecturer at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies and the topic of his book formed the core of his inaugural professorial lecture. "Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China" is therefore a heavy and decidedly academic volume, slender in size but weighty in content. The book explains how opium was tolerated as a recreational social lubricant in late imperial China and the transition to prohibition and the era of drug addiction that followed was the end result of three factors; first, a prolonged period of pressure from British India, secondly, internal cultural change, and thirdly, the changing attitudes to opium within the ruling circles of the Chinese establishment.

There has been little dissent from the traditional view of Imperial Chinese history which blamed the demise of China as a great power and bastion of cultural vigour on the degenerative effects of widespread opium use and the insidious influence of the 'peddlers of death', the British opium merchants. Frank Diköter reveals such views as groundless and it is the great strength of Diköter's book that he identifies the proponents of this propaganda and their sinister agenda.

This remarkable book additionally challenges the image of China as 'a victim of the opium plague' with detailed documentation demonstrating that in the majority of cases the habitual consumption of opium did not result in significantly harmful effects on either health or longevity. In fact in most cases it is shown that moderate opium smoking had a beneficial effect in that in the absence of modern medicines opium proved a general panacea for a wide range of common ailments. It was also claimed that opium had aphrodisiacal properties, and even the bedrooms of bordellos in Shanghai were called 'huayanjian' (chambers of smoke and flowers). Diköter paints an attractive picture of opium culture in the 'Middle Kingdom' as China was once known, the drug forming a central and respected part of the social and medicinal fabric of Imperial China.

In the conventional accounts of the 'opium wars' a highly sophisticated, ancient civilisation was depicted as powerless to resist both the relentless spread of opium and the military incursions of Europe's aggressive merchant navy. It was however, the work of European missionaries who saw opium as morally corrupting, and Chinese nationalists who wished to restore the country's sovereignty that formed an unlikely alliance and together oversaw the introduction of prohibition and the resulting disaster that followed.

At the turn of the century the God Squad were firmly entrenched within a powerful establishment. Zealous missionaries fresh from Europe were active on the frontlines of imperialism and as the merchants, backed up by gunboat diplomacy conquered new lands and seas, so their spiritual supporters flooded into their wake to reap new souls and end pernicious 'foreign' habits.
As British merchants called out the gunboats to protect their trade routes and impose their market dominance, missionaries hand in hand with drug companies sought to change the social habits of a lifetime. This was a pattern not restricted to China but repeated many times in many parts of the world with similar results occurring each time. As traditional opium smoking disappeared 'in smoke' it was replaced by chemical substitutes or alcohol as an alternative social lubricant.

A serious and scholarly book, 'Narcotic Culture' traces the steps from benign opium culture to the post-opium mess. Its message and weighty implications cannot be easily dismissed. Though its subject is mainly imperial China, opium and the habitual use of opiates is universal and the significance of this book's conclusions should not be lost on those who have dealings with class A drugs today.

BP Review by: Abu Hajal