How the East Influenced Drug Prohibition

Abstract

In much of the academic literature drug prohibition is often described as an American, or at least a Western, construct. This paper shows how prohibitions were enforced in Asian countries while the United States and Western Europe were routinely trading opium. The concept of prohibition being a distinctly American construct is, therefore, flawed. Furthermore, Western missionaries to China are often credited as important actors in the formulation of Western prohibitions. These missionaries may, however, have been influenced by the prohibitionist ideals of the peoples they were trying to convert to Christianity. This paper does not dispute the importance of American pressure on the global spread of prohibition but rather seeks to add balance to its historiography, by elucidating how Western prohibitions were pre-dated, and possibly influenced, by Eastern prohibitions.

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