15. Long Before the Colombian Cartels, Britain Dominated the Drug Business
The United States invaded Panama in the twentieth century because it was unhappy with Panamanian government actions that furthered and facilitated the drug trade. In the nineteenth century, Britain invaded China because it was displeased with the Chinese government’s actions against the drug trade. Back then, Victorian Britain was the world’s biggest drug trafficker – bigger than any Latin American drug cartel or any combination of such cartels. And unlike today’s narco-traffickers, Britain did not conduct its narcotics business in the shadows of the global criminal underground but instead did so openly and in the full light of day.
So openly, that Britain fought wars in order to force a foreign government to allow British merchants whose business revolved around the sale of drugs to sell narcotics by the thousands of tons in its territory. The war’s roots traced back to the mid-eighteenth century when the British East India Company began to grow opium, from which heroin is refined. The crop was shipped to China for a hefty profit. Opium was illegal in China, but the British got around that through loopholes, or simply smuggled it in.
