Cosmopolitan underworld: opiate refinement in inter-war Istanbul

Abstract

The Turkish government’s suppression of private heroin factories and its monopolization of opium exports brought the state into conflict with a large numbers of Istanbul residents who sought to profit from the lucrative trade in opiates. Sites of clandestine drug production spread across the urban and suburban landscape, inspiring public alarm and new policing measures. The article examines the human networks behind these production sites, investigating how they utilized the diversity of their members and contacts in the search for profit and the evasion of the state, and how this diversity was interpreted in press and public debate.