19
Jun
Jun
In regard to opium smoking in the United States, [United States Opium Commissioner Hamilton Wright] reported that the Chinese were the primary source of infection, but that it had then spread from white to white and from black to black. He did not want to engage in scare tactics about the spread of this habit from the Chinese to the American population, but he did observe that “one of the most unfortunate phases of the habit of smoking opium in this country [was] the large number of women who have become involved and were living as common-law wives or cohabiting with Chinese in the Chinatowns of our various cities.
- David F. Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control
