Caquet P. Opium's Orphans. The 200-Year History...Drugs 2022

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Upending all we know about the war on drugs, a history of the anti-narcotics movement's origins, evolution, and questionable effectiveness. Opium's Orphans is the first full history of drug prohibition and the "war on drugs." A no-holds-barred but balanced account, it shows that drug suppression was born of historical accident, not rational design. The war on drugs did not originate in Europe or the United States, and even less with President Nixon, but in China. Two Opium Wars followed by Western attempts to atone for them gave birth to an anti-narcotics order that has come to span the globe. But has the war on drugs succeeded? As opioid deaths and cartel violence run rampant, contestation becomes more vocal, and marijuana is slated for legalization, Opium's Orphans proposes that it is time to go back to the drawing board.
The rise of control
Forbidden cities
Opium wars
Paradise lost?
Shanghai and the hague
Prohibition triumphant
Gangsters
Drug prohibition at its zenith
Overreach
The system challenged
Appendixes
Opium smoker numbers in nineteenth-century china
League-era opium regime statistics
Post-war drug seizures