Exactly my point.
Asserting equality between Franklin's era and the post Civil War period
I never did that.
The major market was in China, and that's where the British concentrated their efforts. It was far easier to ship opium from India to China than it was to ship it to the United States.
They wanted Tea and Silk and Porcelain and Gold from China. What did they want from the United States? Pretty much Cotton. Most of our other products they could make just as well themselves.
Also, the British at that time were highly racist, and considered it perfectly acceptable to turn loose the demon of drug addiction on those "heathens". They could do so with impunity and very low chances of bad ramifications coming back to bite them. Not so had they tried shipping that crap to the United States.
Though the Emperor of China could not make his plea reach the Queen's ear, we had no such problem, and if Queen Victoria had heard that the British were shipping poison to her brethren in the United States, she would have quickly called the East India company to an accounting.
Oh, so you mean the spread of addiction is NOT a simple matter of physiology, as you appeared to be claiming earlier? I agree.
Looks like the addiction experts are right to say culture and environment are important factors.
If you think "culture" will protect you from hard drugs,
My awareness of their effects will protect me from hard drugs.
you haven't taken a look around you lately. Did you happen to see this pic?
Many times - it seems to be one of your favorites. What do you imagine it proves? What it proves to me is that legalizing sale and use in one small area will concentrate sale and use in that area, which is almost certainly not a desirable outcome.
Exactly my point.
No, that isn't your point. In 1770 supply was severely limited. It was NOT POSSIBLE to support a large addiction demographic at that time. YOUR POINT is that in conditions of plenty of supply, people would still behave as they did in the 1770s, and that is utter nonsense.
You are falsely conflating the conditions of one era which were very different, with the conditions of our time period where supply issues wouldn't be a restriction.
Asserting equality between Franklin's era and the post Civil War period
I never did that.
You most certainly did. It is implicit in your argument.
Oh, so you mean the spread of addiction is NOT a simple matter of physiology, as you appeared to be claiming earlier? I agree.
Yes, it *is* a simple matter of physiology. The stuff is addictive and it will addict. The only role culture will play is HOW FAST IT WILL HAPPEN. It will happen regardless of culture, but culture may slow down the infection or speed it up depending upon what that group of people believe.
Looks like the addiction experts are right to say culture and environment are important factors.
Oh they are factors, but they are not significant factors to the eventual result. They only slow or accelerate the effect, they will not stave off the effect.
Many times - it seems to be one of your favorites. What do you imagine it proves?
Given that it was taken during one of the most famous experiments (and in a Western Culture) to legalize drugs, it proves that if you legalize drugs you will create a zone of hell. It was a real world experiment, and it didn't go your way. It proved your argument is crap.
What it proves to me is that legalizing sale and use in one small area will concentrate sale and use in that area, which is almost certainly not a desirable outcome.
This is the argument that communists used to explain why communism didn't work. It's because it wasn't universal. If you would just make it universal, it would work, but it can't work piecemeal.
To which any sane person would respond, "if it won't work on a small scale, by what leap of logic can you imagine it working on a large scale?"