Symbolism and racism in drug history and policy

The modern history of drug regulation began 100 years ago with the enactment of laws prohibiting the smoking of opium. In Australia and elsewhere, these laws manifested a fear of Chinese immigration. It was not opium as a substance with particular health effects which concerned the community, but opium as a symbol of transgression which the Chinese presence had elicited. Opium was prohibited because it represented an amalgam of race, sex and fear. This symbolic meaning was developed through the use of metaphor and metonymy. The author examines the way in which these strategies were deployed in the particular context of Australian anti-opium Yaws. Drug laws continue to be about symbols and not substances, and are still and not least an expression of racism and fears of difference.