Your research focuses on the opium monopoly in colonial Philippines. How did the monopoly work? What was its political and economic rationale?
By the time the opium monopoly became effective in January 1844, the Philippines had been a Spanish colony for more than 250 years. The opium monopoly was an estanco —estanco del anfion—, a system characteristic of the finances of the Spanish Empire. The government would auction the right to benefit from a given commodity or activity, such as tobacco, salt, or cards. Under the estanco del anfion the holder earned the exclusive right to introduce, process, and sell opium at the designated spaces, the dens. However, only the members of the Chinese community could buy and consume the drug, while for the rest of the population these activities were forbidden.
Regarding the economic and political rationale, there are a few points to take into account. At the time, the colonial government had a negative fiscal balance and needed to find ways to increase its revenues. Simultaneously, Chinese migration from all social strata to the archipelago had increased in the previous decades. By the 1830s, a fervent love for opium was part of the archetypical image the European powers in Southeast Asia —Spanish, French, British, and Dutch— had about the Chinese. Since opium was an expensive drug, the Spanish authorities feared that prohibition would demotivate rich Chinese from moving to the Philippines and make those already residing there leave. Moreover, they thought that all of this could jeopardise future commercial agreements and ventures in the Chinese market for the Spaniards.
Nowadays, drug policies are subject to constant scrutiny, as different approaches are tested vis-à-vis their efficacy in fighting addiction and curtailing organised crime’s lucrative involvement in the drug trade. Is there some insight from the historical approaches you are studying that could help us better understand the current challenges?
Although wars on drugs and the international fight against narcotraffic are very recent, dating from the 20th century, drugs have been around us for centuries. Understanding how different systems worked through time, from total prohibitions to legalisation through monopolies and everything in-between, can give us an idea on what could be a state’s best response to drug control.
Moreover, although we tend to think of the fight against drugs as the fight of states and international organisations versus organised crime, studying these kind of monopolies makes us reflect on the role played by states. That is, states and empires as promoters of a lucrative business that would allow them to finance themselves and their activities. The estanco del anfion lasted until 1898, but even after that these types of monopolies existed in other territories in southeast Asia, such as Burma, Indochina, and the Dutch East Indies. Furthermore, during the early decades of the 20th century and until the end of World War II, the Japanese, as proven during the Tokyo War Crime Trials, partook and benefited from the opiates’ trade to finance their imperialist activities. Alfred McCoy has also widely demonstrated in his influential book The politics of heroin in Southeast Asia the CIA’s participation in the opium trade throughout the Cold War.
In conclusion, studying these monopolies allows us to rethink control methods and their efficiency, as well as the role played by the different actors involved in the business.
Photo credit: Opium Den, Malinta Street, Manila. University of Wisconsin-Madison Library - Wisconsin Philippines Image Collection