But these ills could be ignored by those who profited from the trade, especially the Western merchants cocooned in the luxurious seclusion of the Canton Factories. Addicts got their fix out of sight, hiding from the authorities in back alleys and opium dens. “Opium was never for sale in Chinese shops in Guangzhou,” Hunter observed, “nor were there any signs by which one could judge it was being prepared for smoking, it being used in no other form.”
