Perspectives on opium trade from Persia to China and its impacts on the economic life and health of Iranian people

Abstract

Opium was one of the drugs in the medieval history of Persia which has been used in medical affairs. By commercialization of poppy in Qajar dynasty with the permeation of the colonial policies, the material was conveyed to India and thence to China as a center of consumption. By enhancing the demand in India, the cultivation of poppy in Persia increased. The circumstances accompanied by a strenuous drought let to the breakout of famine in Persia which inflicted a lot of casualties. In 1907, new arrangement partly altered the previous sphere when constitutional revelation took place. In China, after the second opium war in 1842, Britain could dominate over the economic arteries and escalated Chinese dependency. However, by the production of opium in Bengal and many other cities of China, importing of poppy from Persia confronted an unexpected depression but the uprising of Boxers against British ambitions changed dependency situation. This paper sets out to portray the transaction and treatment of Persian and Chinese societies against the imposed policies.