Drugs and Power

Something To Think About

With the exception of the last 500 years, the economic and intellectual power of the world was focused in East Asia. About 500 years ago Western powers began growing opium in India and forcibly exporting it to East Asia, addicting 1 of 5 East Asians. At the same time economic and intellectual power began migrating westward where drug use was not a significant cultural factor.

Now, 500 years later, the same drug opium, processed as heroin, grown in same fields, along cocaine, a new contribution from the Americas, is widely consumed in Western Nations, only minimally consumed in East Asia.

Economic and intellectual power have, at the same time, begun to migrate back to East Asia. Coincidence?