What was the attitude of the british to the opium cultivation outside the british territories?
Answers
The opium trade yielded enormous profits to the British imperialists in the 19th century.
China as a country was not that powerful at that time. It was forcibly converted into the largest market for opium by the British.
India emerged as a fertile ground for the cultivation of poppy and manufacturing of opium under British monopoly during the colonial period.
British rule in India and British control of the Indian princely states ensured a steady supply of opium from India to China, thereby facilitating the transfer of economic surplus from China to Britain.
This was a profession which was very profitable for the British. So when others started cultivating opium that affected the profit making of the British.
The Indian nationalists opposed to opium and tirelessly criticized the colonial discourse and policy on opium.
Opium has been produced illegally since 1992. Afghanistan is the worlds leading producer. It produces and harvests about 90% of illegal heroin from the opium poppy globally. It exceeds the European supply by more than 95%. Compared to the cultivation of coca in the Latin america, Afghanistan uses more land in opium cultivation. 4 billion us dollars is earned from the export of the opium and a quarter of this value is earned by farmers then the rest goes to warlords, district officials, insurgents and drug traffickers. PGC