>England wanted tea and need >money to balance its trade with China. The answer they came up with >was to sell opium to china and use the money to buy tea. The plant information you have found is fascinating enough, but I wonder if you would mind pursuing the historical aspects a bit more. Would it be out of place in this forum? I think it would be worthwhile because we might start to recognize patterns in what is going on around us now. The claim you make in this citation above is interesting. Whenever I tell my wife about how the transnational corporations are manipulating agriculture and trade for their own benefit and how the banks try to control everything by creating debt, she responds with a reference to how the British Empire (and its predecessors) carried out the same sharp practices as far back as the 1200s or so. They had moneylenders, then, too. (She is very patient as I learn.) Terry J. Klokeid, Ph.D. Amblewood Organic Farm Fulford Harbour BC E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
