Opium in the Old West

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 1, 2007

Dr. Chad Stebbins
(417) 625-9376

 

JOPLIN, MO (SNS) - Diana Ahmad, associate professor of history at the University of Missouri Rolla will present "The Dragon Sleeps: The Smoking Opium Business in the 19th Century American West," at 9 a.m. this morning, Friday, Nov. 2 in Cornell Auditorium in Plaster Hall.

 

Ahmad's presetnation is part of a conference being held by the Robert W. Plaster School of Business Administration.

 

America's current war on drugs is not the nation's first. Though only a very small minority of Chinese immigrants in America was actually involved in the opium business, the spread of opium use into Anglo-American communities was deemed a threat to the America's

entrepreneurial spirit and its growing importance as a world economic and military power.

 

Ahmad is the author of the book book, The Opium Debate and Chinese Exclusion Laws.

The book examines how the spread of opium-smoking fueled racism and created demands for the removal of the Chinese from American life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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