The Politics of Opium in China

The emperor was faced with a bureaucracy that was corrupt at all levels. The bribery was rampant to the point that somebody like William Jardine, who's sort of the kingpin on the British side of the opium trade, could write to a friend back home. Palmerston said that because this law has basically been a dead letter all along, that you've never punished foreigners for selling opium in China. Up until the opium war, the worst that a foreigner could possibly fear if they were caught doing anything short of murdering a Chinese person would be to get kicked out of the country and told not to come back.