Drug trade in Daxia

The drug trade in Corumm is an activity that goes back centuries to the Zhong dynasty. Belying its status as a harsh and unforgiving police state, numerous drugs and addictive substances are actually legal to manufacture, sell and consume in the Repubic of Corumm. The nation is the world's top producer of opiates, crystal methamphetamine and captagon. Giant pharmaceutical conglomerates such as the Opdo Corporation and ToxiCor produce and market hundreds of tons of addictive substances every year, officially solely for internal consumption, but in all likelihood also for export by international trafficking networks.

Undoubtedly in addition to the enormous profits derived from the drug trade both legal and illegal, there are other considerations to take into account. The governmental pursuit of the creation of new, fresh horrors to control or break the minds and will of its people may be behind the legal status of addictive substances. Already the government has instrumentalized the use of opiates through its Xisheng Office of Contentment to enact the wholesale sedation of unruly populations in League-occupied Varshan, to great success.

Overview
The status of drug use in Corumm has had many shifts in the last century or so. Use of recreative opioids was very common and legal during the late Qian period, with the Hongli emperor reportedly consuming them to counteract his frequent mental breakdowns during the war. The military governments that followed the monarchy tried hard to squash the use of drugs. They clamped down harshly on users, producers and traffickers when they could get their hands on them. Campaigns to burn opium poppy fields took place yearly, traffickers were hanged in public places in an effort to create fear, drug users were jailed or sent to mental asylums. These draconian methods failed to make a dent, the astronomical profits meant that new criminal outfits such as the National Opium Syndicate were undaunted. By the 1970's the war on drugs was quietly and reluctantly shelved, and from then on the problem was basically ignored.

The arrival of the PCD brought a change in the approach to the drug problem. The new government saw drug use as an insidious tool to increase its grip on the population. The new and now ideologically motivated intelligence apparatus infiltrated groups like the National Opium Syndicate, but instead of being destroyed they were coopted and put in service of government aims. The crime bosses now had government minders and quotas to fill.

National Opium Syndicate
One of Corumm's oldest criminal organizations, the Syndicate is rumored to be the direct successor of the group that provided opium to the imperial court. It survived the military crackdowns albeit with its structure much changed by the ordeal of government sponsored bloodletting. From a pyramidal, highly hierarchichal structure, nowadays the group operates horizontally, being made up of many semi-autonomous territorial cells that each have an assigned province to operate in. The syndicate is rumored to be engaged solely in transportation and street level sales of opioids within the Alshari mainland and the southern Cathay, with production shifted to other entities. Security experts believe a man named Zhenli Ye Gon to be the top leader of the organization, its 'Director'. If he has any actual operational control or is only a puppet that follows directives from the government cannot be ascertained. Zhenli Ye Gon has led the organization since the mid 1990's after carrying out a palace coup against the previous leadership.