OPIUM SMOKER NUMBERS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHINA
A number of contemporary statisticians – and, after them, historians – have attempted to calculate how many people were opium smokers in turn-of-thecentury China.1 Typically, observers have taken the total quantity of opium consumed in the country and divided this number by the likely average consumption for a median user. This is also what this book does. The total Chinese opium output was only known approximately. Median consumption per user could only be estimated based on surveys, adding a second layer of imprecision. Dividing by an average also introduces a statistical skew if a distribution is spread between two extremes: a small number of very heavy users and a large number of light users. Using the median consumer’s level of use will lead to overstating the total number of users, because heavy users, even if few in number, will take up a large share of total output. This method, nevertheless, is the only one to provide a degree of precision. Total output could be estimated with some confidence because it was the object of significant scrutiny by tax assessors. Typical use can be cross-checked against other geographies, and even other opiates.
The best estimate of peak Chinese opium output is to be found in the Chinese delegation’s report to the Shanghai commission. This contained three possible estimates: a low point by the Board of Revenue for 1906, a midpoint for 1905 by Hosea Ballou Morse, a British commissioner of customs and statistical secretary, and a higher point based on 1906 customs reports. The Board of Revenue total, at 148,100 piculs (1 picul = 60.3 kg, almost the same as a chest), narrowly based on fiscal returns, appears to have been an underestimate. Morse’s calculation, which was based on a combination of fiscal data and surveys based on personal investigation, stood at 376,000 piculs. Morse himself hints that the actual total may have been a little higher. The Board of Revenue total, the highest, was 584,800 piculs. Yet the Board of Revenue had good reason to overstate this number. The Chinese government and its delegation needed to show that the 1907 ban was working. Making the 1906 total as high as possible helped show a fall thereafter. The Board of Revenue 1906 estimate was based on the 1907 numbers upped by a significant but artificial percentage to account for success in eradication. The best guess probably therefore sits between Morse and the Board of Revenue, the average of the two coming out at 480,000 piculs or chests. To this must be added the more precisely known but much smaller net import total of 29,000 chests.
Two further adjustments must be made. First, the raw opium was boiled before it could be smoked, leading to a reduction in volume of 37.5 per cent – this statistic being based on the Shanghai commission report. Second, opium ashes, or dross, were recuperated by den operators to be smoked again. This increased the opium available for smoking again by about 30 per cent, according to the same report. (Newman makes much higher dross adjustments, but the more opium remained to be used from ashes, the less would enter the initial smoker’s system in the first place.)
As to the number of smokers, average opium use per smoker is provided in an earlier report produced by the imperial custom service, itself based on a collection of surveys performed in the various Chinese provinces. While both the methods and the data ranged widely from one province to the next, the averages have a certain statistical robustness. These surveys contained estimates for ‘beginner’, ‘average’ and ‘heavy’ smokers, with medians of 4.2 grams, 11.1 grams and 32.8 grams per day respectively. The average of 11.1 grams is almost certainly high. A French survey dated 1907 for the Cochin-China region of Indochina showed a rate of 1.5 grams per day, though 4.1 grams among Chinese users. In Taiwan, in 1900, 169,064 registered opium smokers consumed 125 tons, or 2 grams per day, though this ignored smuggling. Meanwhile, even if no more than 10 per cent of China’s opium users qualified as ‘heavy’ smokers, this on its own would account for 3.3 grams. A reasonable average might weight equally the ‘beginner’, the ‘average’ and the much lower Cochin-China result, for a result of 5.6 grams per day. This may be compared to the heroin equivalent consumed by the average modern user. The 2009 UNODC World Drug Report estimated that 13 million users consumed 375 tons of heroin, or 79 milligrams per day. Very roughly, heroin can be assumed to be one hundred times more potent than smoked opium, so this would tally with a daily opium dose of 7.9 grams.
The data are summarized in the table below. The Chinese population at the time is assumed to have totalled 450 million.
| Low | High | |
| Chinese output (piculs) | 480,000 | 584,800 |
| Net imports (chests) | 29,000 | 29,000 |
| Raw consumed (metric tons) | 30,690 | 37,012 |
| Net after boiling (metric tons) | 19,182 | 23,133 |
| Dross recuperation (metric tons) | 5,755 | 6,940 |
| Total consumed (metric tons) | 24,937 | 30,073 |
| Median daily use (grams) | 11.1 | 5.6 |
| Median annual use (kg) | 4 | 2 |
| Number of users | 6.2 million | 15.0 million |
| Percentage of the population | 1.4% | 3.3% |