I didn't make a point about the morality of what the merchants were doing. I was responding comment that made a false statement about some sort of British governmental stockpile of Opium that the clever British created the demand for in China. That is simply false, so I corrected it.

To be sure, I do think selling Opium is a moral thing to do, but my point is that this is not government policy, but merchants seeing a demand and responding to it. Only when China Imperial Government comes in and destroyed British stores, do this escalate to a national level conflict.

I think it was stupid for the Britain to start a war over it to be sure.