Discussion of the Ban on Opium in 1920s and 1930s

China was in danger because of the opium-smoking and trade in the 1920s and 1930s. Therefore, a heated discussion of ban on opium went around the whole country, in which various opinions proposed by different levels of people reflected their own interests and requirements. The banners employed the press and the media to expose how the foreigners exported opium illegally to China, and how the warlords, the placemen, and the profiteers connived and enshielded the trading and marketing opium. They attacked the incompetence of the authority and aroused the countrymen to the danger of opium. As a result, the mass rejected the opium and changed the government's attitude toward the ban on opium. In the discussion, the opinion of to ban gradually had a negative effect. The results of the discussion show that it is impossible for Old China to solve the social problem of opium-smoking and drug-trading completely because of its social system.