Chinese Opium-Smokers in the Late XIX Century in the US

19th Century Chinese Opium Smokers in the US

In the nineteenth century, thousands of Chinese people crossed the ocean to find work in the United States.

Part of our China History Archive

They began arriving in San Francisco in 1849. Many found work as laborers, while a small number worked in the opium trade. San Francisco’s Chinatown (唐人街) became the site of numerous opium dens.

With the post-Civil War economy in decline, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized and the Chinese were blamed for depressed wage levels.

The Chinese Exclusion Act

The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a federal law proposed by Republican Congressman Horace F. Page and signed by Republican President Chester Allen Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was built on the earlier Page Act of 1875, which was the first restrictive federal immigration law in the United States prohibiting the entry of Chinese women. The ban was heavily enforced and it was a barrier for all East Asian women trying to immigrate, especially Chinese women. For this reason, early Chinatowns were largely bachelor societies.

Opium in the Community

Opium was used among the Chinese, but because of the urgent need to save money to send home, most of the newcomers took narcotics only on Sundays and other nonworking times. The tongs (堂), the Chinese triad, supplied drugs to the local community.

Opium Dens and Early Drug Laws

San Francisco passed the Opium Den Ordinance on November 15, 1875, generally considered the first anti-drug law in the United States. It made it a misdemeanor to keep or frequent an opium den, though it did not ban the sale, import, or private use of the drug itself. By the 1880s, the San Francisco Call estimated the city had around 300 opium dens, serving a mix of Chinese and non-Chinese regulars, with some estimates placing the number of habitual smokers in the low thousands. Enforcement fell disproportionately on establishments that served white customers rather than on dens serving only the Chinese community. Most of San Francisco’s opium dens were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire and were never rebuilt. The remaining trade was further curtailed by the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 and finally by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, which placed strict federal controls on opium and coca products nationwide.

Opium-eradication campaigns drove opium smoking underground, but it was still fairly common in North America until around World War II.