OPIUM WAS ECONOMIC ENGINE FOR THE CITY

Drug Was Legal In Canada Until 1908; Victoria Had As Many As 13 Factories

When large numbers of Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco for
the gold rush in the 1840s, they brought with them a habit from home:
opium smoking. And when the gold rush moved north to British
Columbia, so did Chinese miners -- and their habit.

In fact opium was entirely legal in Canada until 1908, and the drug,
which is derived from the poppy plant, was one of the economic
engines of early Victoria.

The Kwong Lee, Tai Soong and Yan Wo Sang companies in Chinatown were
the first three opium importers and manufacturers.

The number of opium factories increased to eight in 1884 and to 13 in
1888. Most of the 13 factories were located on Cormorant Street
between Government and Store streets (a section that is now part of
Pandora Avenue), then the business centre of Chinatown, and had
annual output of nearly 90,000 pounds.

The processed opium was sold for about $7 per pound in the 1860s but
the price had increased to $10 per pound in the 1870s and to $15 in
the 1880s and 1890s.

Opium was sought because of its effects: A member of the narcotic
family, it offers relief from pain and anxiety as well as relaxation.
Rich merchants smoked opium at home, while labourers frequented the
opium dens in basements of many Chinatown buildings. Some Chinese
associations even tried to encourage officials to attend meetings by
offering free opium-smoking after the meetings were over.

The use of opium was not restricted to Chinese men only. In February
1881, a Chinese in Victoria told a reporter of the Colonist that 14
or 15 white persons frequented the Chinese opium dens of whom three
or four were women and two or three were young boys.

The white addicts usually did not smoke opium but drank laudanum, a
mixture formed by dissolving the opium in alcohol.

Various levels of government not only permitted the manufacture and
sale of opium -- they profited from it.

In 1865, Chinese opium sellers paid the city of Victoria an annual
licence fee of $100, which was increased to $250 by 1886. In 1896,
the city of Nanaimo derived $9,139 from licence fees, of which $500
came from opium licences, second only to liquor licences.

After British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871, duty on opium
import became a great source of government revenue. From 1872 to
1900, for example, the duty on opium imported into British Columbia
amounted to nearly $1.15 million.

In the 1870s, opium was British Columbia's third largest export to
the U.S. after coal and fur.

Although Chinese residents had always been condemned for smoking
opium, there was no moral stigma attached to the lucrative opium
trade and manufacture.

Unfortunately, while opium induces relaxation, it is highly addictive
and produces impaired co-ordination and alertness. Prolonged use can
lead to mental deterioration and even death.

Because of those negative effects, the United States prohibited the
importation of opium in 1880. As a result, Chinese opium merchants in
the U.S. relied on supplies from Victoria. The prepared opium was
sold at $10 in Victoria but it was worth more than $20 in the United States.

Sailors, cooks or petty officers on vessels that plied between
American Pacific ports and Victoria hid opium on their vessels and
smuggled opium into the United States.

Often opium was taken to the beaches at Ten Mile Point and shipped at
night across the Haro Strait, which is about 11 kilometres wide at
its narrowest spot, to San Juan or other nearby islands.

Once landed on the American islands, the opium could easily be
shipped to Port Townsend and other coastal towns in Washington state.
American customs officers remarked that most opium was transported by
the Canadian Pacific Railway, and smuggled across the American border.

After the anti-Chinese riot in Vancouver's Chinatown on Sept. 7,
1907, Mackenzie King, then deputy minister of labour, was sent to
Vancouver to assess losses sustained by the Chinese and make
recommendations for compensation.

In examining the claims, he discovered that opium manufacturing and
smoking were still legal.

There were at least seven opium factories in Vancouver, Victoria and
New Westminster, and the total value of their product in 1907
amounted to about $650,000. Upon Mackenzie King's recommendation,
Parliament passed an act prohibiting the importation, manufacture and
sale of opium on July 20, 1908.