Opium War Drug Kingpins

The drug dealers who brought opium to China got fabulously rich - most were British, while a handful, like Warren Delano (FDR's grandfather), were Americans. Drug "kingpins" are organized drug traffickers who profit from and prey on the vulnerabilities of addicted users. These kingpins are the masterminds who are really running the drug distribution operations. In November 1993, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a Strategic Management System. DEA implemented the Kingpin Strategy, "DEA's primary enforcement effort focusing on the identification and targeting of drug Kingpins and their supporting infrastructure." US drug laws generally do not differentiate between drug kingpins, who run large drug trafficking operations, and drug addicts, who may traffic in controlled substances only to make enough money to buy more drugs to feed their habit. Drug kingpin statutes consist of series of increasing penalties based upon certain case characteristics.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's fortune was inherited from his maternal grandfather Warren Delano. In 1830 he was a senior partner of Russell & Company. It was their merchant fleet which carried Sassoon's opium to China and returned with tea. Warren Delano moved to Newburgh, NY. In 1851 his daughter Sara married a well born neighbor, James Roosevelt - the father of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Warren Delano (b. 1809), grandfather to President Roosevelt, descended from a long line of seafaring Delanos. Warren inevitably followed in his ancestors' footsteps and became an apprentice at a Boston merchant bank and shipping firm. At this time he built connections with other men who would proffer opportunities to make the profitable investments that allowed Warren to count his family one among the four hundred wealthiest families. Warren left the United States in 1833 to follow the trading routes the Delanos had already developed. Warren ventured to South America, the Pacific Islands and then on to China. In Canton he replaced Samuel H. Russell of the Boston tea company Russell and Company. Warren lived in China for nine years, earning the position of Chief of Operations for Macao, Canton, and Hong Kong. His greatest achievement was the expansion of Russell & Company’s trade in opium.

Warren Delano contributed to the Union war effort by shipping opium to the Medical Bureau of the U.S. War Department. While this contribution has been hailed as a humanitarian effort to ease the pain of the wounded and dying, the fact remains that Warren Delano was able to recoup his wealth from the trade in opium.

Warren Delano, the grandfather of America's 32nd president Franklin D. Roosevelt, "was the American opium king of China," James Bradley [author of 'The China Mirage'] said. "Much of the east coast of America – Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton were born from opium money. The American industrial revolution was funded by huge pools of money which came from illegal drugs [from] the biggest market in the world – China," he says, adding that of course it wasn't talked about, but called it "the China trade."

John Kerry's maternal grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in Shanghai, China, where the Forbes family of China and Boston accumulated a fortune in the opium and China trade. Forbes married Margaret Tyndal Winthrop, who came from a family with deep roots in New England history. Through her, John Kerry is related to four Presidents, including, ironically, George W. Bush (9th cousin, twice removed).

John Churchill (1650-1722), son of an impoverished country gentleman, was the greatest military leader that Britain has ever produced. He brilliantly led the combined armies of Britain, Austria and Holland against Louis XIV of France, and was created First Duke of Marlborough.

George Spencer-Churchill, 5th Duke of Marlborough (correctly pronounced: "MO-bra"), (March 6 1766 - March 5 1840) was the son of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough. This illustrious name did not, however, save him from his mounting debts and his estates were seized and his collections sold. Though bearing the highest honours in the kingdom, the Duke of Marlborough is one of the many poor Peers to be found in the rolls of Parliament. Queen Anne settled upon the family, in consideration of the great services rendered to the state by the tirst Duke, a pension of 5000 £, and also built for them the splendid mansion of Blenheim. These extensive estates, however, were heavily encumbered, by the extravagant expenditure of its noble possessors. The 5th Duke, overwhelmed with debts and difficulties, married Lady Susan Stewart, daughter of John Stewart, 7th Earl of Galloway, on 15 September 1791. They had six children, including the great-grand-uncle of Sir Winston Churchill, Capt. Lord Henry John Spencer-Churchill, born 22 September 1797, died 2 June 1840 in Macao. On 24 March 1840, the fine frigate the Druid, commanded by Lord John Churchill, arrived off Macao, and thence proceeded to Tongkoo Roads, a most welcome reinforcement. Lord John Churchill, who was senior officer, unhappily died, after a few weeks' illness, on the 3rd of June.

John Winston Spencer Churchill ( Winston's grandfather ) was born on 02 Jun 1822 in Garboldisham Hall, Garboldisham, Norfolk.

David Sassoon was born in Baghdad, Iran in 1792. His father, Saleh Sassoon, was a wealthy banker and the treasurer to Ahmet Pasha, the governor of Baghdad. In 1829 Ahmet was overthrown due to corruption and the Sassoon family fled to Bombay, India. This was the strategic trade route to interior India and the gateway to the Far East. In a brief time the British government granted Sassoon "monopoly rights" to all manufacture of cotton goods, silk and most important of all - Opium. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1905, states that Sassoon expanded his opium trade into China and Japan. He placed his eight sons in charge of the various major opium exchanges in China. According to the 1944 Jewish Encyclopedia: "He employed only Jews in his business, and wherever he sent them he built synagogues and schools for them. He imported whole families of fellow Jews. . . and put them to work."

Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon (1818-1896), British Indian philanthropist and merchant, was born at Bagdad on the 25th of July 1818, a member of a Jewish family settled there since the beginning of the 16th century, and previously in Spain. His father, a leading Bagdad merchant, was driven by repeated Anti-Semitic outbreaks to remove from Bagdad to Bushire, Persia, and in 1832 he settled in Bombay where he founded a large banking and mercantile business. Albert Sassoon was educated in India, and on the death of his father became head of the firm.

Opium as consumed in Britain in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was drunk in the form of laudanum, a solution of crude opium in alcohol containing about one twelfth part by weight of the active ingredients of opium. Gladstone took laudanum in his coffee before debates in the House of Commons. Coleridge and De Quincey were Opium-eaters. After all, "The Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel" may have been but Opium dreams, the fumes of a drug, sad ravings Opium-inspired.

Robert Clive ("Clive of India"), the son of a Shropshire squire who became the heroic founder of Britain's Indian Empire, when he defeated the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in June 1757. Clive became the governor Bengal under the banner of the East India Company. From there he was able to launch successful military campaigns against the French and stop the expansion of the Dutch. He was able to strengthen a vast opium empire in India, as the monopoly of opium cultivation in India passed into the hands of the East India Company through the victory of Clive at Plassey. Clive's main weakness was was that despite his humble background, he came home with a fortune larger than anyone else's. Clive was accused of acquiring personal wealth of £234,000 to the dishonor and detriment of the state. Clive died an opium addict and a possible suicide from an overdose of laudanum at the age of only 49. Clive's family maintained that he overdosed on opium which he took regularly to relieve the pain he was in due to a bowel disorder.