Most of us associate the 19th-century commerce in opium with the Opium Wars that propelled China into humiliating economic subjugation to Western powers. Opium was probably second only to slavery as a shameful economic underpinning to European domination of much of Africa and Asia. Consequently, it is important that we understand not only where the poppy was grown, who purchased it, and where and why it was marketed, but also the values and ideologies that led to its suppression by the very polities that earlier had encouraged its cultivation and habitual use.