Constructing Addiction as a Moral Failing

Abstract

The aim of the SSOT, to convince the British public of the harm inflicted on the Chinese by the continuance of the opium trade, was reiterated in each issue of the Friend of China. They were aided considerably in their propagandist efforts by reports which filtered back from medical missionaries in China who testified to the injurious effects of opium on the indigenous population. From their daily contact with the opium-using Chinese they perceived the harm to result from the favoured Chinese recreational practice of ingesting opium through smoking; something practically unheard of in Britain. Reprinted wholesale in the Friend of China, (and frequently adjacent to pro-opium testimonies) these missionaries documented their observations of the effects of opium smoking under several headings, including social and physical as well as spiritual.