剖析阿片：在地滋味、科技實作與日治初期臺灣阿片專賣

Assaying Opium: Local Taste, Technoscientific Practice and the Opium Monopoly in Early Colonial Taiwan

阿片吸食做為一種社會活動，在臺灣的歷史甚是久遠。早自日治初期起，總督府即將阿片由原先日人眼中的社會問題，轉變為獲利頗豐的專賣事業。本文以「使用者」及「物質」為中心的研究取徑，探索殖民時期台灣阿片製造的歷史過程與實作細節，並重新思考過往阿片研究中常遭忽視或低估的面向，如吸食者的需求、品味，以及原料的分析與調控等。本研究提供了一個早期科學與技術進入臺灣並實際運用的實例，具體呈現近代科技在政治、經濟以及知識生產等，彼此扣連環節上所產生的深遠影響。藉由分析實驗室／工廠實作以及測量／標準化這兩個STS 研究中的重要議題，本文將闡述早期科技適應臺灣在地環境的過程，並探究在殖民的情境下，近代科技是如何重構臺灣的物質及社會網絡，讓這個島嶼成為一個適合科學與工業活動進行的豐饒殖民地。

This article is a historical account of the production of opium and its monopoly in early colonial Taiwan. It analyses how the Japanese colonial government successfully turned the ’opium problem’ in Taiwan into a well-controlled substance on the island and details the mechanisms that led it to be a profitable monopoly business. Taking a materialoriented and STS approach, this research focuses on the practical details of the production of opium pastes. It examines the interplay between the many varieties of opium, local workers and connoisseurs, Japanese technicians and authorities within the laboratory and factory in which opium was studied, analyzed and made. The study of opium monopoly in colonial Taiwan (1895-1945) extends our understanding of opium smoking by showing the impact laboratory and factory, as well as modern measurement and standardization, had on the making and mass-producing of opium pastes in early colonial period, and reminds readers of the power and socioeconomic structure that was behind and sustained these technoscientific practices.