That's so funny. :)
opium trade
Early in the 18th century the Portuguese found that they could import opium from India and sell it in China at a considerable profit. By 1773 the British had discovered the trade, and that year they became the leading suppliers of the Chinese market. The British East India Company established a monopoly on opium cultivation in the Indian province of Bengal, where they developed a method of growing opium poppies cheaply and abundantly. Other Western nations also joined in the trade, including the United States, which dealt in Turkish as well as Indian opium.
Britain and other European nations undertook the opium trade because of their chronic trade imbalance with China. There was tremendous demand in Europe for Chinese tea, silks, and porcelain pottery, but there was correspondingly little demand in China for Europe’s manufactured goods and other trade items. Consequently, Europeans had to pay for Chinese products with gold or silver. The opium trade, which created a steady demand among Chinese addicts for opium imported by the West, solved this chronic trade imbalance.
Opium WAS legal in the US in the nineteenth century. If you want a direct comparison, try explaining why the US experience was nothing like the Chinese experience. As you make that explanation, take notes because that’s why the East India Trading Company example is completely irrelevant.
One could have to know csomething about history to understand this.