Opium dens in China were frequented by all levels of society, and their opulence or simplicity reflected the financial means of the patrons. In urban areas of the United States, particularly on the West Coast, there were opium dens that mirrored the best to be found in China, with luxurious trappings and female attendants.

China opium den, circa 1896. The historian Jonathan Spence notes that the harm opium caused has long been clear, but that in a stagnating economy, opium supplied fluid capital and created new sources of taxes. Smugglers, poor farmers, coolies, retail merchants and officials all depended on opium for their livelihood.

2021年10月17日 · The Chinese brought opium dens to the western United States in the late 19th century, where they quickly spread across America and Europe. Opium dens were popular with Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds as a calming alternative to alcohol during the anti-drinking Temperance Movement.

2018年5月4日 · Smartly dressed opium smokers lounge around in an opium den in New York in 1925 as the drug craze swept the country. Four well-to-do white women lie around a Chinese man, all clearly intoxicated, in New York in 1926.

2023年7月30日 · Basically, while Americans frequenting the opium dens had free reign to see the drug as a purely cathartic release, for Chinese immigrants, the drug had a much darker association. The opium trade of the 19th century was somewhat forced onto China, largely just so that Western nations could benefit.

2014年10月13日 · Dr. John Thackery passes through a number of dimly-lit opium dens in the heart of New York’s Chinatown during the course of The Knick. What were these dens really like—and who frequented them?

In the late 1880's the San Francisco Call estimated that there were about 300 opium dens in the city, most of them in Chinatown, serving the roughly 3,000 hardcore "hopheads" or "opium fiends," along with the countless others who indulged less immoderately.

2022年8月5日 · The Chinese opium dens came to represent the dirty, sin-filled habits of the “Oriental” people - who were seen as trying to spread their evil ways to the Western World. In reality, the opium dens in London were few and far between, and quite tame.

2017年6月28日 · Established by the Chinese and arriving in the US via ships, the first opium dens sprung up in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1840s and 1850s, and were soon being used by people from...

Chinese Opium Den (also known as Opium Joint) is an 1894 American short black-and-white silent film. It is an early motion picture produced by Thomas Edison. Very little is known about the film as no print is believed to exist and all that remains is a single still image.