The Fashioning of Colonial Opium Policy in Arakan and Tenasserim, 1826–1852

Abstract

Although opium consumption has a long history in Burma, it is difficult to establish the specifics — by whom opium was consumed, in what context and how much — before the colonial era. Nonetheless, in order to better understand the development of the colonial opium industry this chapter briefly discusses opium consumption in pre-colonial Burma and outlines the British East India Company’s involvement in the Asian opium trade prior to the annexation of Arakan and Tenasserim in 1826. This chapter also sets opium consumption in Burma in a transnational context, briefly examining opium consumption and regulation elsewhere in Asia and establishing connections between regulation and consumption in India and China and in Burma which subsequent chapters will explore in greater detail. This chapter’s examination of British rule and opium administration in Arakan and Tenasserim introduces in nascent form several of the recurrent themes in this study: the connection between opium and labour, the recurrent question of the rationale for British drug policy and imperial rule and the importance of transnational networks in determining imperial drug policy. In order to understand the context of the colonial opium industry, it may be helpful to first sketch a very brief history of opium consumption, moving from the global history of opium to the local history of opium consumption in Burma.