So this is a short essay over how the Opium 'world' arrived in America, and how it declined.
Basically....around the mid-1800s....as California became a magnet.....the Chinese began to arrive, and 'Dens' began to get set up. San Francisco? It was the chief draw for well over fifty years. Toward the last quarter of the period....NY City became the second magnet.
Acceptance? Most everyone agrees that the dens flourished all the way through WW I, into the 1920s and 1930s, then the acceptance business started to fail as WW II started up. From that point on....acceptance was on the decline.
The last raid of a known Opium Den in NY City? Mid-summer 1957.
I was reading a piece this past weekend over the business aspects (most all of these were run by Chinese members of society....rarely Americans themselves).
Successful people came to the Dens for a day or two of relaxation, and whatever pain they had (whether real or imaginary).....they felt relief from. Yes, kinda like the issue with fentanyl or opioids today.
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