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Was that anywhere near China levels?

No it wasn't, and that's because it was never allowed enough time to get to that level. We stopped it before it got that bad by outlawing these drugs.

More interesting information from that linked article: "The opium rush was at its most prevalent during the 1880s and 1890s, which coincided with the rise of the temperance movement."

Post Civil War people were becoming aware of the dangers of drug addiction. Yes, several hundreds of thousands of former soldiers addicted to drugs would tend to make people aware that the stuff is dangerous, and so would therefore initiate a temperance movement to stop it.

We stopped it before it got that bad by outlawing these drugs.

That's one theory - another, no less consistent with that evidence, is that it was never going to get that bad.

addicted to drugs would tend to make people aware that the stuff is dangerous, and so would therefore initiate a temperance movement to stop it.

The temperance movement was not about opium: http://law.jrank.org/pages/10714/Temperance-Movement.html

We stopped it before it got that bad by outlawing these drugs.

From the DEA:

"Many soldiers on both sides of the Civil War who were given morphine for their wounds became addicted to it, and this increased level of addiction continued throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. In 1880, many drugs, including opium and cocaine, were legal — and, like some drugs today, seen as benign medicine not requiring a doctor’s care and oversight. Addiction skyrocketed. There were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. That is twice as many per capita as there are today.

"By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict."

So we had 400,000 opium addicts in 1880, many of whom were addicted Civil War veterans. The population of the US in 1880 was around 50M. That works out to an addiction rate of 0.8% in 1880. Now, in 1900 the addiction rate to either opium or cocaine was 1 in 200. That is an addiction rate of 0.5%.

So in 1880 there were 0.8% addicted to just opium vs 0.5% to either opium or cocaine in 1900. The DEA is telling us that addiction declined substantially between 1880 and 1900, despite these drugs being legal.