The Cost of A Cheap Ride

Sometime in the mid nineteenth century, a bunch of big shots at the East India Company got together to figure out how to balance the trade deficit they had vis-a-vis China. You see, China sold tea and took only silver for it. Reluctant to lose their silver, these big shots came up with a fantastic idea of selling opium to the Chinese instead. Opium was grown in India (mostly forcibly) and was auctioned by the company. Enterprising candidates (includes all kinds of you-know-whos from Delanos to Tagores to Tatas) made voyages to Canton and dumped all the opium they could there. Naturally, the addiction to the drug rocketed and brought a lot of misery. When the Chinese government wanted to do something about it, these traders proclaimed it as an assault on "free trade". 1, 2

Links

(1) http://www.thehindu.com/books/free-trade-and-the-opium-wars-through-the-lens-of-amitav-ghosh/article17400402.ece
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War