Hong Kong, the drug capital of southeast Asia for the last century.
The second program in the series "The Heroin Wars" examines the 30-year War on Drugs in Hong Kong, which has been the drug capital of southeast Asia for a century, ever since the Chinese ceded it to Britain to harbor the opium fleet. In Hong Kong opium was sold under a government license until the end of World War II, when Britain enforced the UN treaty against narcotics. In the 1960s Hong Kong's suppliers and addicts switched from the relatively innocuous opium to the stronger and more addictive heroin because it was easier to smuggle and quicker to consume.
The film follows the fortunes of the Triad gang, which controlled the selling of heroin on one street corner. Over the years some of the gang evade the police, but others are arrested and jailed. Ah Sing tries to kick the habit but fails, and eventually dies of an overdose.
The film also follows the Hong Kong police as they raid heroin factories and distribution centers in what appears to be a futile struggle, since they seldom reduce the amount of heroin reaching the gangs on the street level.
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