Fun historic footnote on that as well. After China tried to enforce their ban on opium trade, Britain declared war on them to try to force them to accept it. The Brits won and thereafter claimed Hong Kong as one of the spoils of war. A spoil that was returned only in 1997, after which an invisible (and on occasion not so invisible) game of tug-of-war ensued. Can't wait to read the next chapter!

It doesn't stop with one generation.

As Chinese workers immigrated into America, they opened opium dens here too.

https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Chinatown%27s_Opium_...

Then, the opium poppy, a plant not endemic to the Americas, started being cultivated in Mexico. Why Mexico? because the US banned Chinese immigration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

We cannot ever blame the drug crisis on the British because it breaks the rules of history where history is written by the victors. We have to let people get away with stuff. We cannot describe the EIC as narcos, and if someone does, we have to downvote them.

The problem with this analysis is: where does the buck stop?

Why does moral responsibility always stop with Europeans? Does Europe posses some Adult Moral capability the Mexicans lack?

Whatever story of woe you want to tell about why "china did X", can be told likewise about europe. The buck, stops where then? The Romans? The Celts?

Whataboutism.

The only thing I can say here is that people like Lord Palmerston were aware of what they were doing.