Opium in Singapore - the history and background

 Video: Hikelopedia's [Singapore and the "Scourge of the Chinese"]

Video above presents a historical narrative of how opium was used and abused and exploited and how it affected Singapore. 

Then there are less serious narratives like the one below, mainly to explain why Singapore is so tough on drugs.

From a blogpost [https://visitorsingapore.blogspot.com/p/common-misconceptions.html]: 

Why is Singapore so intolerant of drugs?  

Well, you have to look at history. Many Singaporeans are Chinese, and China was humiliated by the British, and other colonial powers in the 19th century. The British would sell opium to China, and use the revenue to buy tea and sell that to Britain and Europe (and, I understand, to the colonies in the New World, a.k.a. "the States" today, as well, until the colonist there threw the tea into the Boston Harbour. They probably knew that the tea was bought with drug money. Or something like that.) 

And when China tried to stop the British from selling opium to the Chinese, they (the Brits) went to war. (So before there was a War on Drugs, there were War FOR Drugs!) 

China was humiliated in those wars (they lost) and the British took Hong Kong (as compensation?) But they had to give Hong Kong back in 1997. Opium ravaged the people and left them lethargic and listless. This also happened to Singapore before, during and after World War II. 

After the Japanese left and the British returned, Singapore was a mess. People facing the aftermath of the Japanese occupation, with no jobs and no hope turned to the embrace of opium to dull their senses to the hopelessness.

Sang Nila Utama? 

And a few hundred years before that, a (presumably) drug-addled Prince from Palembang made landfall on what we now call "Singapore", after a storm. He then went hunting (because that is what you do when you're a prince from Palembang after surviving a storm at sea). He saw a strange creature with a red body, a black head and white breast. He asked his chief minister what the animal was, and the Chief Minister told him it was a lion. Oh wait! It was not the Prince that was doing drugs. it was the Chief Minister. Anyway, the Prince, Sang Nila Utama, declared that the island would be called Singapura, or Lion City, even though Lions are not native to this area. And certainly not Red bodied, Black Headed, and White Breasted "lion". Like, what kind of lion is that?!?! 

Okay, the Prince might also have been on drugs... It was a drug party on the royal yacht! (if it helps, in my mind's eye, I see Capt Jack Sparrow - Johnny Depp, "Pirates of the Caribbean" - as this prince.) 

Anyway, 700 years or so later, some other person possibly on drugs, put the head of a lion on the body of a fish and created the Merlion. And the rest is drug-fuelled history. 

Meanwhile, the US started to decriminalise Recreational Marijuana in 2012 (Colorado & Washington first). 

By 2016, about half the states in the US had legalised marijuana. 

And Donald Trump was elected President! 

Coincidence? Or Consequence? 

So, that is why Singapore is so tough on drugs! (We don't want to elect a Donald Trump!)