Tuesday Tidbit-Opium

 There's a lot about opium. A lot written about it and a lot to know. Here are a few key historical bits from a cool timeline I found on PBS for research for Sins of a Rogue. I've only added the timeline for the 1700s, which is when the book takes place. 

 In Sins of a Rogue, Paul must confront his past, which involves alcohol, opium, and a less than ideal friend he thought had died in Bombay. He's forced to wonder if the changes in him since his marriage to Kaya are real or if the lure of opium is stronger.

1700	The Dutch export shipments of Indian opium to China and the islands of Southeast Asia; the Dutch introduce the practice of smoking opium in a tobacco pipe to the Chinese.
1729	Chinese emperor, Yung Cheng, issues an edict prohibiting the smoking of opium and its domestic sale, except under license for use as medicine.
1750	The British East India Company assumes control of Bengal and Bihar, opium-growing districts of India. British shipping dominates the opium trade out of Calcutta to China.
1753	Linnaeus, the father of botany, first classifies the poppy, Papaver somniferum-- 'sleep-inducing', in his book Genera Plantarum.
1767	The British East India Company's import of opium to China reaches a staggering two thousand chests of opium per year.
1793	The British East India Company establishes a monopoly on the opium trade. All poppy growers in India were forbidden to sell opium to competitor trading companies.
1799	China's emperor, Kia King, bans opium completely, making trade and poppy cultivation illegal.
1800	The British Levant Company purchases nearly half of all of the opium coming out of Smyrna, Turkey strictly for importation to Europe and the United States.