from London to Shanghai, Singapore to Saigon, Peking to Paris. In the 1700s and 1800s, and well into the 1900s, it was one of the most pervasive and destructive drugs ever, with dozens, if not hundreds, of opium dens likely to be found in any major city on earth. ...
Don’t confuse this opium museum with the smaller House of Opium, also in the Golden Triangle area near Chiang Rai (which focuses more on its huge souvenir shop). The Hall of Opium Museum is the flagship museum on opium – and the one you want to see when figuring out what to do in...
In 1930, the territory had 3,500 licenced opium dens, or one for every 1,500 adult males. Drug abuse had spread from the upper strata of society down to coolies in the ports. A. Viollis, a French writer, describes an opium den he saw in Saigon in the 1930s: Let's enter ...
Sometime after 1950 the French military awarded the Binh Xuyen another lucrative colonial asset, Saigon’s opium commerce. The Binh Xuyen started processing MACG’s raw Meo opium and distributing prepared smokers’ opium to hundreds of dens scattered throughout the twin cities.(91)They paid a fi...