The Egyptians began cultivating opium thebaicum in Thebes, in 1300 BC, and its medicinal properties are mentioned in the ancient Greek and Roman medical texts. In 460 BC, Hippocrates recognised the opium poppy's medicinal and narcotic values, while rejecting its magical attributes. Homer and Livy also recorded its medicinal properties, and Dioscoroides wrote a detailed description of opium extraction in the first century AD.

The ancient Greeks dissolved the latex in wine to induce a trancelike state and associated the poppy with Hypnos, the god of sleep, Morpheus, the god of dreams and Thanatos, the god of death.

Opium was not known in China until Arab traders brought a sample from Egypt in 400 AD (or possibly the 7th century). Chinese physicians recognised the plant's medicinal properties and used it to cure dysentery. The revised 1736 publication of the General History of the Southern Provinces of Yunnan describes opium as a common every day product.

Up until Emperor Yung Cheng issued the first edict prohibiting opium smoking in 1729, 200 chests of opium per year were shipped from India on Chinese junks. In 1757, the East India Compmany took over India's monopoly of opium cultivation, and in 1773 it wrestled control of trade with China from the the Portuguese.

In spite of the severe penalties imposed by the Chinese Imperial government in 1796, including the death penalty, importation and smoking continued. Contraband trade increased, to 16,877 chests per annum between 1820 and 1830.

In 1839, Emperor Tao-Kwang sent Lin Tsze-su to Canton to put an end to opium smuggling. When the British opium ships serving as depots ignored Lin's proclamation to take hostile measures, he destroyed 20,291 chests of opium valued at £2,000,000.

The British persistence in smuggling cargoes ashore, along with outrages committed on both sides, resulted in an open war, which did not end until the treaty of Nankifig, in 1842. The importation of opium continued and was legalised in 1858.

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