Royal Commission on Opium (original) (raw)

The Royal Commission on Opium was a British Royal Commission that investigated the opium trade in British India in 1893-1895, particularly focusing on the medical impacts of opium consumption within India. Set up by Prime Minister William Gladstone’s government in response to political pressure from the anti-opium movement to ban non-medical sales of opium in India, it ultimately defended the existing system in which opium sales to the public were legal but regulated.