1 The origin of opium in the Indonesian archipelago is still an open question. Earlier works speculate that Arab traders had brought and traded opium in the archipelago since the early modern period. See Baud, Jean Crétien, ‘Proeve van eene geschiedenis van de handel en het verbruik van opium in Nederlandsch-Indie’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 1 (1853): 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Reid, Anthony, ‘From betel-chewing to tobacco-smoking in Indonesia’, Journal of Asian Studies 44, 3 (1985): 529–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Courtwright, David, Forces of habit: Drugs and the making of the modern world (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

3 See Trocki, Carl A.: ‘The rise of Singapore's great opium syndicate, 1840–1886’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSEAS) 18, 1 (1987): 50–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Opium and empire: Chinese society in Singapore, 1800–1910 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Opium, empire, and the global political economy: A study of the Asian opium trade, 1750–1950 (London: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar; Drugs, taxes, and Chinese capitalism in Southeast Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)Google Scholar; ‘Opium and the beginning of Chinese capitalism in Southeast Asia’, JSEAS 33, 2 (2002): 297–314Google Scholar; ‘A drug on the market: Opium and the Chinese in Southeast Asia, 1750–1880’, Journal of Chinese Overseas 1, 2 (2005): 147–68Google Scholar; ‘Chinese revenue farms and borders in Southeast Asia’, Modern Asian Studies 43, 1 (2009): 335–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘Writing the history of drug commodities’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 56, 1 (2013): 98–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tagliacozzo, Eric, Secret trades, porous borders: Smuggling and states along a Southeast Asian frontier, 1865–1915 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Derks, Hans, History of the opium problem: The assault on the East, ca. 1600–1950 (Leiden: Brill, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Butcher, John and Dick, Howard, eds., The rise and fall of revenue farming: Business elites and the emergence of the modern state in Southeast Asia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. During the colonial era, the term Indigenous (Inlanders) was used to refer to the local population, including Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Acehnese, etc., which was differentiated from Europeans (Europeanen) and Foreign Orientals (Vreemde Oosterlingen), mostly Chinese. See Fasseur, C., ‘Cornerstone and stumbling block: Racial classification and the late colonial state in Indonesia’, The late colonial state in Indonesia: Political and economic foundations of the Netherlands Indies 1880–1942, ed. Cribb, Robert (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), p. 31Google Scholar.

5 Foster, Anne L., ‘Prohibition as superiority: Policing opium in Southeast Asia, 1898–1925’, International History Review 22, 2 (2000): 253–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Rush, James, Opium to Java: Revenue farming and Chinese enterprise in colonial Indonesia, 1860–1910 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

7 Gaastra, Femme, ‘De Amfioen Sociëtet: Een gepriviligieerde handelsmaatschappij onder de vleugel van de VOC, 1745–1794’ [The opium society: A privileged trading company under the VOC's wing, 1745–1794], in De cirkel doorbroken: Met nieuw idëën terug naar de bronnen, Opstellen over de Republiek [Breaking the cycle: Returning to the sources with new ideas, to setting-up the Republic], ed. Ebben, Maurits and Wagenaar, P. (Leiden: Instituut voor Geschiedenis, 2006)Google Scholar; Souza, George Bryan, ‘Opium and the Company: Maritime trade and imperial finances on Java, 1684–1796’, Modern Asian Studies 43, 1 (2009): 113–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 van Ours, Jan C., ‘The price elasticity of hard drugs: The case of opium in the Dutch East Indies (1923–1938)’, Journal of Political Economy 103, 2 (1995): 261–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chandra, Siddarth, ‘What the numbers really tell us about the decline of the Opium Regie’, Indonesia 70 (Oct. 2000): 101–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; van Luijk, Eric W. and van Ours, Jan C., ‘The effects of government policy on drug use, Java 1875–1904’, Journal of Economic History 61, 1 (2001): 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Claudine Salmon, ‘A critical view of the opium farmers as reflected in a syair by Boen Sing Ho (Semarang, 1889)’, Indonesia, special issue, ‘The role of the Indonesian Chinese in shaping modern Indonesian life’ (July 1991): 25–52; Cribb, Robert, ‘Opium and the Indonesian Revolution’, Modern Asian Studies 22, 4 (1988): 701–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Rush, James R., ‘Opium in Java: A sinister friend’, Journal of Asian Studies 4, 3 (1985): 549–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The article is later included as chap. 2 in his book Opium to Java: Revenue farming and Chinese enterprise in colonial Indonesia, 1860–1910 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

11 Monnais, Laurence and Cook, Harold J., eds., Global movements, local concerns: Medicine and health in Southeast Asia (Singapore: NUS Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Amrith, Sunil S. and Harper, Tim, eds., Histories of health in Southeast Asia: Perspectives on the long twentieth century (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

12 Ooi Keat Gin, ‘Torn between economic, public health and Chinese nationalism: The anti-opium campaign of colonial Malaya, ca. 1890s–1941’, in Monnais and Cook, Global movements, local concerns, pp. 127–49.

13 See for example, Heselink, Liesbeth, Healers on the colonial market: Native doctors and midwives in the Dutch East Indies (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boomgaard, Peter, ‘The development of colonial health care in Java: An exploratory introduction’, BKI 149, 1 (1993): 77–93Google Scholar; Boomgaard, Peter and Sciortino, Rosalia, eds., Health care in Java: Past and present (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Vivek Neelakantan, ‘Health and medicine in Soekarno era Indonesia: Social medicine, Public health and medicine education’ (PhD diss., University of Sydney, 2014); Bosma, Ulbe, ‘Smallpox, vaccination, and demographic divergence in nineteenth century Indonesia’, BKI 171, 1 (2015): 69–96Google Scholar.

14 Takashi Shiraishi introduced this term to portray the rise of social activism among urban-based middle class Muslim batik traders in Solo, who sought a way to strengthen their economic position against the dominant Chinese businessmen. This led to the establishment in 1912 of Sarekat Dagang Islam, which later transformed into Sarekat Islam, the first modern Islamic mass-organisation in Java. See Shiraishi, Takashi, An age in motion: Popular radicalism in Java, 1912–1926 (Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications [SEAP], Cornell University, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Locher-Scholten, Elsbeth, Ethiek in Fragmenten: Fijf Studies over Koloniale Denken en Doen van Nederlanders in de Indonesische Archipel, 1877–1942 [Fragmented ethics: Five studies about Dutch colonial thinking and practice in the Indonesian Archipelago, 1877–1942] (Utrecht: Hes, 1981)Google Scholar; Peter Boomgaard, ‘The welfare services in Indonesia, 1900–1942’, Itinerario, special issue, ‘India and Indonesia from the 1920s to the 1950s: Origins of planning’, 10, 1 (1986): 57–82; Fasseur, C., ‘Ethical policy and economic development: Some experiences of the colonial past’, Lembaran Sejarah 3, 1 (2000): 209–21Google Scholar; Moon, Suzanne, Technology and ethical idealism: A history of development in the Netherlands East Indies (Leiden: CNWS, 2007)Google Scholar.

16 Nordholt, Henk Schulte, ‘Modernity and cultural citizenship in the Netherlands Indies: An illustrated hypothesis’, JSEAS 42, 3 (2011): 435–57Google Scholar.

17 For a recent study on the discourse of modernity in late colonial Java, see van der Meer, Arnout H.C., ‘Performing colonial modernity: Fairs, consumerism, and the emergence of the Indonesian middle class’, BKI, special issue, ‘New urban middle classes in colonial Java’, 173, 4 (2017): 503–38Google Scholar.

18 Abdul Wahid, ‘From revenue farming to state monopolies’, pp. 122–30.

19 Rush, Opium to Java, p. 218.

20 Chandra, ‘What the numbers really tell us’, pp. 103–5.

21 The first conference was organised in Shanghai in 1909, while The Hague hosted the next two conferences in 1911 and 1912. Beside the Netherlands, the other participating countries were Great Britain, France, China, Spain, Japan, and the United States, which was the main driving force behind these anti-opium conferences. See Chatterjee, S.K., Legal aspects of international drug control (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981)Google Scholar; and for the Dutch perspective see Leeuw, Ed and Marshal, Ineke Haen, eds., Between prohibition and legalization: The Dutch experiment in drug policy (Amsterdam: Kugler, 1994)Google Scholar.

22 Machoedoem, Soetan, Djaoehkanlah dirimoe daripada tjandoe [Distance yourself from opium] (Weltevreden: Balai Pustaka, 1920), p. 13Google Scholar.

23 Rush, Opium to Java, pp. 34–5. In his famous autobiography, Thomas de Quincy described that taking opium did indeed have immediate positive physical effects such as relaxation, happiness, and pain relief; but over the longer term, opium also produced negative effects such as pain, fatigue, mental disorder, and even death. Quincy, De, Confessions of an English opium eater (London: Taylor & Hessey, 1867), pp. 22–3Google Scholar.

24 Dikötter, Frank, Laamann, Lars and Xun, Zhao, Narcotic culture: A history of drugs in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 80Google Scholar. Zhou Yongming argues that opium smoking was invented by Chinese living in Batavia, which was then brought to Mainland China and Formosa via Hong Kong by commuting Chinese traders. Before that drinking opium syrup and chewing or eating opium were the only known methods of consuming opium, in particular among Westerners. Yongming, Zhou, Anti-drugs crusades in twentieth century China: Nationalism, history, and state building (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 12–13Google Scholar.

25 Rush, Opium to Java, pp. 39.

26 Charles TeMechelen, ‘Rapport Uitgebracht in Voldoening aan ‘s Gouvernement Besluit d.d. 9 Juli 1885’, Special Collection, KITLV, H 422 (a–c); Leiden University Library.

27 1 mata is equal to about 0.38 grams or 380 milligrams.

28 In Semarang, as reported by the local Resident, opium smokers were Chinese and Javanese, mostly traders, craftsmen, and labourers, and a few peasants. Only a few Arabs and Eurasians smoked opium. ‘Opium rapport, staat (en voorsteden) en Afdeeling Semarang’, KITLV, H 422 (a), folio 1555.

29 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie over het jaar 1914 [Report concerning the Opium regime Service for the year 1914] (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1915), pp. 15–17.

30 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie jaar 1924 (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1925), pp. 34–5.

31 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie jaar 1925 (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1926), p. 34.

32 Ibid., p. 35.

33 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opium- en Zoutregie jaar 1940 [Report of the opium- and salt regimes for the year 1940] (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1941), p. 21.

34 In 1940 there were four Europeans registered as opium users, all of whom were over 50.

35 Scheltema, J.F., ‘The opium trade in the Dutch East Indies I’, American Journal of Sociology 13, 1 (1907): 103–4Google Scholar.

36 Rush, Opium to Java, pp. 239–40.

37 Chandra, ‘What the numbers really tell us’, p. 123.

38 Souterwoude, Elout van, De Opium-vloek op Java [The curse of opium in Java] (‘s-Gravenhage: Anti-Opium Bond, 1890), pp. 36–50Google Scholar.

39 de Mol van Otterloo, Antonie, De Opiumschuivers in het Hospitaal [The opium smoker in the hospital] (Utrecht: Kemink, 1933), pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

40 The management board consisted of: D.U.W. Weenink van Loon (chair), A.J. Bliek (secretary), M. Tuiten (treasurer), Lie Teng Ho, Na Keng Hoei, A.V. Klaus, Mrs. Mansell, Khouw Hong Nio, Lie Tjian Tjoen, Lie Teng San, Mej. M. Myers, G. Bannink, Kan, Khouw (members). The Dutch preachers were members of the Nederlandsche Zending Vereeniging (NZV), while the Chinese preachers were serving in several Chinese churches in Batavia. Anti-opium Hospitaal Vereeniging te Batavia, Eerste Jaarverslag (1 April 1915–31 Maart 1916) [Anti-Opium Hospital Association, First annual report {1 Apr. 1915–31 Mar. 1916}] (Batavia: Boekhandel Kourant), pp. 8–16.

41 Ibid., p. 18.

42 At the time, the colonial government had just started to develop a modern hospital system with medical facilities for ordinary citizens, including the indigenous population. Opium addiction, however, was not considered yet as a health or medical problem, hence no single hospital provided medical treatment for opium addicts. Sjoerd Zondervan's recent dissertation on the hospital system in the Indies, for example, does not mention opium addiction as part of the colonial system. Sjoerd Zondervan, ‘Patients of the colonial state: The rise of a hospital system in the Netherlands Indies, 1890–1940’ (PhD diss., University of Maastricht, 2016).

43 The new board consisted of the following figures: A.Vermeer (chair), A.K. De Groot (secretary), G.J.P. Vernet (treasurer), Gouw Khiam Kiet, Na Oen Soei, Dr. N.A.C. Slotemaker De Bruine, M. Tuiten, J.B. De Wilde (members), Ong Cheng Seng, Kwe A Soe (propagandists), Dr. E. Vogelesang, Lim Ping Swan, Kho Ken Bie, Kwie Sin Tjhwan, dan Jo Tok Heng (correspondence). Berichten Uitgaande van de Antiopiumvereeniging [News from the Anti-opium Association], 4, 1931, p. 19.

44 This organisation gained legal status on 8 Nov. 1926 with the following management structure: P.R.W. van Gesseler Verschuir (chair), Mejuffrouw K. Jochems (second-chair), L.K. Wennekendonk (secretary), Prof. H.M. Neeb (medical adviser), and Mrs. J. van der Weijden van Heutsz, R.A.A. Wiranatakoesoema, Tjen Djin Tjong, Poey Kok Gwan, Ong Soe Aan, Yap Loen (members). Except Mr. Wiranatakoesoema, the Regent of Bandung (a Muslim), the remaining board members were active in Bandung's Catholic churches. The NIAOV's statute mentions explicitly that the organisation was based on Christian beliefs. Jaaarverslag 1927 der Nederlandsch-Indische Anti-Opium Vereeniging te Bandung [Annual report 1927 of the Dutch East Indies Anti-Opium Society in Bandung] (Bandung: Maks & van der Klits, 1927), p. 2.

45 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie jaar 1928 (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1929), pp. 39–41.

46 ‘De Opening van Het Opium-Paviljoen’ [The opening of the Opium Pavilion], Berichten Uitgaande van de Antiopiumvereeniging 7, Dec. 1931, pp. 8–9.

47 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opium- en Zoutregie regie jaar 1940 (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1941), p. 35.

48 Anti-opium Hospitaal Vereeniging te Batavia, Tweede Jaarverslag (1 Apr. 1916–31 Mar. 1917) [Anti-Opium Hospital Association, second annual report {1 Apr. 1916–31 Mar. 1917}] (Batavia: Boekhandel Kourant, 1918), pp. 10–12.

49 AOHV, in its annual report of 1917 (ibid.), criticised the government's refusal to provide subsidies for the medical treatment of opium addiction. Interestingly, in this edition the AOHV harshly criticised Sarekat Islam and Budi Utomo, two leading Indonesian mass organisations, for their silence on opium addiction. Such criticism contrasts with Rush's study (Opium to Java, p. 253), which mentions that Budi Utomo showed an interest in the opium problem and approached the Dutch about it. No publications by the colonial anti-opium organisations mention cooperation with Indonesian nationalist organisations.

50 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opium- en Zoutregie regie jaar 1940, p. 38.

51 Warta Anti-opium Vereeniging [News from the Anti-Opium Association] 11, Nov. 1940, pp. 2–3.

52 Berichten uitgaande van de Anti-Opiumvereeniging, June 1931, p. 31.

53 Jaarverslag 1927 der Nederlandsch-Indische Anti-opium Vereeniging te Bandung [Annual report 1927 of the Netherlands Indies Anti-opium Association in Bandung], p. 5. In 1933, the two opium clinics in Bandung provided therapy to 633 addicts, half of whom were sent by the AOV Batavia. Out of 633 patients, 545 were Chinese, 65 Indigenous, 5 Europeans and Other Foreign Asians; 36 were female and the rest were male. Bonebakker, A., An, Ong Soe, Soei, Khouw Eng, Ervaringen en Herorienteering ten aanzien van het Opiumbestrijdingswerk [Experiences and reorientation in regard to the work of the fight against opium] (Batavia: Druk Vorkink, 1934), p. 5Google Scholar.

54 ‘Verslag over het jaar 1927 Van het Anti-opiumwerk in het zendingshospitaal Immanuel te Bandoeng Uitgebracht door Dr. De Mol van Otterloo (Geneesheer-Diirecteur) [Report for the year 1927 of the Anti-opium work in the mission hospital Immanuel in Bandung conducted by Dr. De Mol van Otterloo (Director-Physician)]’, in Jaarverslag 1927 der Nederlandsch-Indische Anti-opium Vereeniging te Bandung (1927), Bijlage E.

55 Sioe, Kwa Tjoan and Hong, Tan Kim, ‘Opiumontwenningskuren met Blaarserum’ [Opium detoxification with blister serum], Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 2 (1 Feb. 1931): 140–67Google Scholar.

56 de Mol van Otterloo, Antonie and Bonebakker, A., ‘Over de doeltreffendheid van de ontwenningskuur volgens Modinos voor opiumschuivers’ [On the effectiveness of the Modinos detoxification method for opium addicts], Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië 71, 4 (1931): 862–72Google Scholar; Hegt, F.J.H. Noordhoek, ‘Ontwenningskuur bij opiumschuivers volgens de method van Modinos’, [Detoxification of opium addicts by the Modinos method], Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië 71, 4 (1931): 898–903Google Scholar; Ongkiehong, H.F., ‘Een Beschouwing over de Behandelingsmethoden van Opiumschuivers’ [A thought about the treatment method of opium addicts], Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië 71, 4 (1931): 962–8Google Scholar.

57 De Mol van Otterloo, De Opiumschuivers, p. 5.

58 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opium- en Zoutregie Jaar 1937 (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1938), pp. 64–5.

59 De Mol van Otterloo, De Opiumschuivers, p. 10.

60 De Nederlandsch-Indische Grooteloge van de Internationale Orde van Goede Tempelieren is a transnational theosophical organisation based in North America, which developed in the Netherlands in 1890s and in the Indies in 1910s. In the Indies, this organisation attracted Europeans, Chinese, and Indigenous members and was actively involved in the anti-opium campaign. See its profile in Booy, De, Internationale Orde van Goede Tempelieren, 1927–2 Januari 1937 (npp: IOGT, 1937)Google Scholar.

61 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opium- en Zoutregie Jaar 1940, pp. 36–7. The IOGT received f3,200 and f2,000 for its nazorg programme, which included routine medical check-ups, psychological counselling, etc. In 1939, the NIAOV also received f2,800 from the government for a similar programme.

62 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie Jaar 1923, p. 36.

63 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie Jaar 1928, p. 41.

64 The material included the book Fatamorgana en Andere Verhalen, Lesboekje in verband met het opiumvraagstuk in Insulinde (AOV Batavia, 1935) containing basic information for youth on opium, its origins, potential dangers, and guidance on avoidance. The Volkslectuur [People's Reading] Commission calculated that until 1940, there were about 3,500 anti-opium titles in Dutch, Malays, Javanese and Sundanese distributed throughout the Netherlands Indies (Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opium- en Zoutregie Jaar 1940), p. 39.

65 Verslag Betreffende den Dienst der Opiumregie Jaar 1930, p. 36. On the importance of the pasar malam or night fair in Java as a site of colonial modernity performance see van der Meer, ‘Performing colonial modernity’, pp. 503–38.

66 Chandra, ‘What the numbers really tell us’, p. 123.

67 Cribb, ‘Opium and the Indonesian Revolution’.