ABSTRACT
Prior to the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong (1942-5), opium smoking was not illegal, provided the drug was obtained from official government centres and consumed in the user’s home. Since opium consumption was actively promoted by the Hong Kong government for nearly a century (1841-1945), the local drugs market was dominated by this drug (Traver 1991: 42). In 1946, after the Japanese had surrendered, the British Military Administration banned the consumption of narcotics. As a result, illegal opium divans sprang up in Hong Kong. When the Communist Party gained complete control of mainland China in 1949, Chinese refugees, including members of the Shanghai-based Green Gangs, emigrated to Hong Kong. They brought in heroin, which was in common use in Shanghai (Morgan 1960). This drug, which was cheaper and more convenient than opium, rapidly supplanted opium as the most common drug in Hong Kong (Traver 1991: 49), and heroin divans gradually replaced opium ones.
