During the 19th century the British, contrary to the country’s prohibition laws, supplied opium to the Chinese people on such a scale that it
provoked two wars with Chinese in 1839 and 1858, which the Chinese lost. By 1905 a quarter of the male population of China were regular consumers of
opium.
Why? Simply because China had a positive trade balance sheet with the British...the British living beyond their means, were running down their stocks
of silver... so they became dealers and imported opium from India, in massive quantities, to balance Britain’s books with China.
The youth in Britain may be blissfully ignorant of the Opium Wars but the Chinese people learned a horrible lesson (completely beyond their control)
that they will never forget.
Meantime in the UK the current state of play according to homeoffice.gov is
homeoffice.gov
As a teenager, in the early days of ‘Thatcher’s Britain’, a few took ‘a smoke’, and 99.9% of the time that smoke was cannabis. A lot of
people never took up smoking cannabis because they didn’t like smoking at all.
In those days however (beginning to fade nostalgically to memories of the ‘good old days’) if a ‘do good’ neighbour smelled ‘something
funny’ they would phone the police and report it. And the police would actually turn up, carry out a search and press charges on the basis of
neighbourhood watch olfactics!!
Compare that with just 4 years later when a fella I knew vaguely approached me telling me how I’d missed myself at the weekend. A massive outdoor
‘rave’ had been held etc etc. First of all I burst out laughing at the use of the word ‘rave’. It brought forth quaint images of Buddy
Holly...just for the first time every illegal drug was being consumed with the police on a watching brief. Why the change in policy?
The music was designed for the drug MDMA (ecstasy)...a social connection too. During lab experiments on rats and mice they knew that MDMA increased
locomotor activity in the brain ... the brain enjoyed simple repetitive stimuli...and moving to same.
MDMA
Effects
The test that I remember in particular was of three caged rats.
The first rat, being in its natural state, the second was on speed and the third on ecstasy. The first rat moved in an irregular and inquisitive
fashion - changing direction, altering speed, rising on two legs and sniffing the lid of the restrictive glass box on occasion. The second rat, the
rat given speed, behaved in exactly the same fashion as the first rat -but a lot faster. The third rat however, the one on mdma, didn’t behave in a
‘normal’ rat way at all. It simply repeatedly walked round the parameters of the glass box, in the same direction, at the same rate, showing no
interest in anything at all in its limited environment.
No wonder the authorities tacitly consented to its use! The benefits to the state at the time of its wide spread introduction include;
1. Giving users, with no economic future before them, something to look forward to on a weekend.
2. Replacing ambition with addiction.
3. Pacifying young males under the age of 25.
4. The hugely increased market for illegal drugs kept liquid cash flowing through the economy at a time when there wasn’t much going round.
5. No-one really noticed or cared while our food, manufacturing and power industries moved elsewhere.
A little bit of what happened to the Chinese population way back when.
Milosevic’s Serbia really demonstrated the attempts of the state to maintain absolute control over its youth. For an explanation of how Milosevic
hijacked the rebellious youth culture
Listen Here This doc. was produced by
BBC Radio 1 at a time when their own playlist was heavily censored.