ABSTRACT
Since the advent of fi lm, stories about drugs, drug users, addiction, traffi ckers, and criminal justice have entertained audiences. Drug prohibition emerged at the same time as the discovery of fi lm, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and their histories intersect in signifi - cant ways. Early silent fi lms, like Chinese Opium Den, produced in 1894, were only half a minute long and they were featured at penny arcades. Only stills exist of Chinese Opium Den, yet they are telling. Asian men portrayed as foreigners lay semiconscious on wooden bunks smoking opium out of long pipes. From their inception, fi lm narrative and imagery racialize drug use and associate specifi c drugs with foreigners and racialized people. The nation, whether it be Britain, Canada, or the United States, is represented in illegal-drug fi lms as under constant threat by street drugs and those associated with them.
