OPIUM, de staat als dealer

Step into the world of *Opium* and discover how the Netherlands built an opium empire, with far-reaching consequences. The exhibition literally takes you back in time. To the heroin epidemic at the end of the last century and even further back to the 17th century, when the VOC started trading in raw opium. The Netherlands traded in opium for years and even had its own opium factory in Batavia. From purchasing to production and from sales to distribution, the entire chain was once completely in the hands of the Dutch State. Did you know that opium was a legal product in the Netherlands until 1919?