Anti-Chinese Xenophobia Fueled America's First Drug War
Opium dens in San Francisco were patronized "by the vicious and the depraved," politicians of the 1800s claimed.
(Photo: An opium den in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, in 1898; REASON 31 Strohmeyer & Wyman/Library of Congress)
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This article originally appeared in print under the headline "'Smoking Opium Is Not Our Vice'."