Chapter 31 Tobacco exports, imports and smuggling

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In the early 1800's, British merchants smuggled opium into China and made a fortune;

Americans and other Europeans were involved too, but to a lesser extent. Although

opium was completely illegal, addictive, and terrible for health, caused all kids of other

social problems, and drained China of vast quantities of silver, the merchants

aggressively pushed their product. Apologists for the merchants denied that opium

was bad for health. The British argued that if they didn't sell opium, trade would be

lost to merchants from other countries. In 1839, after a decade of escalating

problems with opium, the Chinese tried to stop the trade by confiscating opium stored

by British merchants. This led to the Opium War (1839-42). The British won, and the

opium trade continued to flow.

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In the 1980's, the American tobacco companies spearheaded a modern-day opium

war in the Far East. At the time, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, and Japan each had

a closed market dominated by government-owned monopoly. American tobacco

companies had no access to these markets. American tobacco companies do not

like to be told "No," so they pressured Yeutter, the US Trade Representative, to take

action to open the markets. By 1985, the USTR agreed. He warned the four

governments that if they didn't open up their markets, the United States would impose

severe trade sanctions. Here was the US government, with its health warnings and

advertising restrictions to discourage smoking at home, turning around and using

threats in order to increase sales abroad. The US government pushed much harder

to open the foreign markets for cigarettes than for other American products, no doubt

a reflection of the powerful tobacco lobby.

Quote from "The Modern Opium War," Smoke and Mirrors, p. 217 (Rob

Cunningham)

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Monday, July 24, 2000

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