日志
PBS Opium History
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https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/etc/history.html
1805  | A smuggler from Boston, Massachusetts, Charles Cabot, attempts to purchase opium from the British, then smuggle it into China under the auspices of British smugglers. | |
| 1812 | American John Cushing, under the employ of his uncles' business, James and Thomas H. Perkins Company of Boston, acquires his wealth from smuggling Turkish opium to Canton. | |
| 1816 | John Jacob Astor of New York City joins the opium smuggling trade. His American Fur Company purchases ten tons of Turkish opium then ships the contraband item to Canton on the Macedonian. Astor would later leave the China opium trade and sell solely to England. | |
| 1819 | Writer John Keats and other English literary personalities experiment with opium intended for strict recreational use--simply for the high and taken at extended, non-addictive intervals | |
| 1821 | Thomas De Quincey publishes his autobiographical account of opium addiction, 'Confessions of an English Opium-eater.' | |
| 1827 | E. Merck & Company of Darmstadt, Germany, begins commercial manufacturing of morphine. | |
| 1830 | The British dependence on opium for medicinal and recreational use reaches an all time high as 22,000 pounds of opium is imported from Turkey and India. Jardine-Matheson & Company of London inherit India and its opium from the British East India Company once the mandate to rule and dictate the trade policies of British India are no longer in effect. | |
| 1837 | Elizabeth Barrett Browning falls under the spell of morphine. This, however, does not impede her ability to write "poetical paragraphs." | |
| March 18, 1839 | Lin Tse-Hsu, imperial Chinese commissioner in charge of suppressing the opium traffic, orders all foreign traders to surrender their opium. In response, the British send expenditionary warships to the coast of China, beginning The First Opium War. | |
| 1840 | New Englanders bring 24,000 pounds of opium into the United States. This catches the attention of U.S. Customs which promptly puts a duty fee on the import. | |
| 1841 | The Chinese are defeated by the British in the First Opium War. Along with paying a large indemnity, Hong Kong is ceded to the British. | |
| 1852 | The British arrive in lower Burma, importing large quantities of opium from India and selling it through a government-controlled opium monopoly. |
