Description:
"Contrary to popular belief, the poppy has not always been a major cash crop in the Golden
Triangle—and nor has the sale and consumption of opium always been illegal. Prior to World War
Two, all countries in Southeast Asia has government-controlled opium monopolies, not unlike the
tobacco monopolies today. What was illegal was to smuggle opium and to trade without a licence.
Most local addicts were ethnic Chinese, who had migrated to Southeast Asia's urban centres in the
19th and early 20th centuries—and brought with them the opium smoking habit from their old
homes in China.
In the beginning, Thailand (then Siam) had actually tried to stop the practice. In 1811, King
Loetlahnaphalai (Rama II) had promulgated Siam's first formal ban on selling and consuming
opium. In 1839, King Nangklao (Rama III) reiterated the prohibition, and he introduced the death
penalty for major opium traffickers. These efforts, however, were doomed to failure. Ethnic
Chinese traffickers could be arrested and punished—but a much more powerful institution was
pushing Siam to open its doors to the drug: the British East India Company, which had initiated
large-scale cultivation in its Indian colonies, and was looking for new export markets in the region.
Thailand was never a colony, but that did not mean that it escaped the scourges that had fol-
lowed foreign rule in neighbouring countries. Finally, in 1852, Siam's revered King Mongkut
(Rama IV) bowed to British pressures. He established a royal opium franchise which was "farmed
out" to local entrepreneurs, mostly wealthy Chinese traders. Opium, lottery, gambling and alcohol
permits were up for grabs. By the end of the 19th century, taxes on these monopolies provided
between 40 and 50 per cent of Siam's government revenue.1
The American researcher Alfred McCoy, who has written extensively about the origin and evo-
lution of Southeast Asia's drug trade, describes how the importance of the opium business gradu-
ally increased..."
Source/publisher:
Bertil Lintner
Date of Publication:
2000-03-00
Date of entry:
2020-01-09
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Countries:
Myanmar
Language:
English
Local URL:
Format:
pdf
Size:
387.02 KB (30 pages)
Resource Type:
text
Text quality:
- Good