East End Opium Dens and Narcotic Use in Britain Virginia Berridge reading
East End Opium Dens Virginia Berridge 2013
Virginia Berridge (1978) East End Opium Dens and Narcotic Use in Britain, The London Journal, 4:1, 3-28
De Quincey Confessions of an English Opium Eater, London
Magazine 1821.
Possibility of working-class recreational use of the
drug, misunderstanding of working-class patterns of self-medicated and
widespread popular use of the drug as an antidote to excessive drinking.
1830 Prof Robert Christison could only find 10 British
addicts to opium.
Descriptions of opium smoking as a domestic phenomenon
began in the 1860’s. reflection of the greater numbers of Chinese settling and
the investigations of East End London.
Dickens’ Mystery of Edwin Drood 1870
Control over the use of opium and distribution were
controlled under the Pharmacy Acts of 1868 and 1908. Sellers of scheduled drugs
who were not qualified pharmacists could be prosecuted. However, the
Pharmaceutical Society were given few powers to take action, it had no power to
enter shops or inspect registers or stock, the fine of five pounds imposed on
conviction was in any case not likely to be a deterrent. The isolation of the
Chinese community in London made the Pharmacy Acts as a measure of control in
this area virtually a dead letter.
Local attempts for control
London Country Council and the Medical Officer of Health
were anxious for the introduction of compulsory licensing in order that opium
smoking could be controlled.
1907 ‘The only way to deal with questions such as opium
smoking, gambling, and systematic over-crowding, is by licensing.’
1909 new laws were passed under the 1894 Merchant
Shipping Act. Compulsory licensing of seamen’s lodging houses were introduced;
the offence of opium smoking could lead to the withdrawal of a lodging-house
keeper’s licence.
However, prosecutions of the unlicensed houses were
numerous, but loopholes in the law, such as the definition of ‘seamen’ were
exploited to prevent convictions when cases came to court. Informants within
the Chinese community who were prepared to give evidence about practices which
could lose a keeper his license.
1912 this happened.
The number of houses in which opium smoking took place
was small in relation to the furore the practice caused. Only thirteen Chinese
boarding houses in the area, which was assumed they were all opium dens. ‘Opium
smoking is a national habit with them, and they indulge it in their bedrooms.
The practice is rather on the decrease than otherwise.’
The penalties imposed by the County Council’s by laws,
had led to an increase in smoking in private houses.
The number of licensed houses was always relatively small
1910 – 14
1911 – 6
1912 9
1914 9
There were many more unlicensed houses ‘The den was a
shifting entity, changing its location almost as often as the floating
population of seamen in the area.’
A reporter for Morning Advertiser, ‘it was not
repulsive. It was calm, it was peaceful. There was a placid disregard of
trivialities, politics, war, betting, trade, and all the cares, occupations,
and incidents of daily life, which only opium can give.’
To stigmatise opium smoking simply because it was a
Chinese recreational practice was hypocritical when domestic alcohol
consumption continued relatively unchecked.
All the dens in these two streets together will not
furnish from one month’s end to another any such spectacle of degradation or
rowdyism as may be seen nightly in almost any public house.
Opium for sale were ‘strange in a so-called Christian
land.’
Sir William Collins leading anti-opium propagandist
stated in 1919 that ‘the vice of opium smoking was less objectionable than that
of the gin palace.’
Opium smoking was an aid to hard work, not a distraction
from it, and smokers managed to combine their habit with normal working
existence.
Class tensions which had led to the acceptance of the
working-class opium eating myth
Public health issues high levels of death from opium
accidental or suicidal
Child dosing
Morality – organisations formed to campaign against
Britain’s involvement in the Indian opium trade with China that the dangers of
the domestic opium den were initially highlighted.
Chinese opium wars of mid-century
1874 Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade
East End Chinese – should be saved from their vice.
‘these ruinous dens were full of poor Chinese, helpless slaves to this
expensive indulgence.’
Middle-class degeneracy ‘we really have a new habit,
prolific of evil, springing up amongst us… it is coming close to us with
rapidity and spring undreamt of even by those who have dreaded its stealthy and
unseen step.’
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| Le Petit Parisien, unknown, sheet music cover, Pinterest, 1899, [accessed 14 June 2022] |
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