History Main / OpiumDen

Historically associated with Chinese culture, but not all are from that area. Limehouse, in LondonTown, was [[http://eastlondonhistory.com/chinatown-in-limehouse/ not actually that bad at all]] (the actual reason for the prevalence of this trope is, to cut a long story short, that in the 1800s the British virtually got everyone in China hooked on opium because the Chinese had a lot of stuff the British wanted to buy, but the British had nearly nothing the Chinese wanted).

* HighlanderTheSeries: A good friend of Duncan Macleod's spent the better part of an Old West {{Flashback}} in one of these, trying to deaden the panic he'd felt about his role in the neverending Game.

* D.W. Griffith's tragedy ''BrokenBlossoms'' takes place in Limehouse. The Chinese hero, a Buddhist missionary, falls on hard times and takes to the pipe.

* RobertEHoward 's Rhomerian "weird menace" novel Skull Face starts with protagonist Steven Costigan (a u.s. veteran of WWI) escaping the nightmares of the Argonne trench warfare in an Opium Den located, of all places, in the Londinese limehouse.

* RudyardKipling's "The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows".

* In the beginning of ''{{The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen}}'' comic, Alan Quatermain is in an opium den.

* In ''AroundTheWorldInEightyDays'' by JulesVerne, the detective Fix gets Passepartout drunk and stoned in an opium den in HongKong in order to separate him from Phileas Fogg.

* The title character in ''{{The Picture of Dorian Gray}}'' frequents opium dens.

* {{Highlander the Series}}: A good friend of Duncan Macleod's spent the better part of an Old West {{Flashback}} in one of these, trying to deaden the panic he'd felt about his role in the neverending Game.

The image of the opium den is often romanticized, probably because few such places still exist. The media are more realistic in portraying other places where drug users gather to get high, such as "shooting galleries" (where addicts gather to inject drugs, usually heroin) and crack houses.

Opium use was known as "kicking the gong (around)", thus explaining the use of that phrase in many jazz songs.

* Lau runs one of these in ''Manga/BlackButler''.
* Granny Hao, Minnie May's old associate and underworld contact runs one of these off screen in ''Manga/GunsmithCats''. She also provides all sorts of highly effective Chinese herb remedies as a side business, that rival synthetic drugs in their effectiveness.

* D.W. Griffith's tragedy ''BrokenBlossoms'' takes place in Limehouse. The Chinese hero, a Buddhist missionary, falls on hard times and takes to the pipe.

* CharlesDickens' ''Literature/TheMysteryOfEdwinDrood'' begins in one.

The image of the opium den is often romanticized, probably because few such places still exist. The media are more realistic in portraying other places where drug users gather to get high, such as "shooting galleries" (where addicts gather to inject drugs, usually heroin) and crack houses.

* Harvey Keitel's titular (and [[NoNameGiven nameless]]) ''BadLieutenant'' visits a latter-day heroin den that otherwise fits the trope.

* Lau runs one of these in ''Manga/{{Kuroshitsuji}}''.

* In ''Film/{{Dodgeball}}'', the {{mockumentary}} on how to play dodgeball claims that the game was invented in Chinese Opium Dens.

* Lau runs one of these in {{Kuroshitsuji}}.
* Granny Hao, Minnie May's old associate and underworld contact runs one of these off screen in ''GunsmithCats''. She also provides all sorts of highly effective Chinese herb remedies as a side business, that rival synthetic drugs in their effectiveness.

* The Blue Lotus in the {{Tintin}} book of the same name. This being a more upmarket, well-painted example, frequented by businessmen and diplomats.
* The least romanticized version possible appears in ''YTheLastMan'' as [[spoiler:virtually the entire continent of Australia.]]

* In ''{{Dodgeball}}'', the {{mockumentary}} on how to play dodgeball claims that the game was invented in Chinese Opium Dens.

* In ''{{Brick}}'', the area behind Carrow's Restaurant where Dode and the other stoners hang out is intended to reference this, as evidenced by the Asian-sounding musical cues.
* Both the graphic novel and film versions of AlanMoore's ''From Hell''.

* In ''{{Inception}}'', the dream-den beneath Yusuf's shop seems intended to evoke this.

* One shows up in the SherlockHolmes story "The Man with the Twisted Lip". [[TheWatson Watson]] got sent to retrieve another man and finds Holmes there; Holmes must reassure Watson that he's only there undercover as part of an investigation and has not "added opium to the list of my vices".

* AgathaChristie's "The Lost Mine" on "Poirot's early cases" features one.

* Many a CabCalloway song takes place in or refers to an OpiumDen, in which Minnie the Moocher and Smokey Joe 'kick the gong around'.

* The Copper Coronet in ''[=~Baldur's Gate~=] II'' features a hidden black lotus den (at least, it does before you clean the place out).
* Oblivion has a Skooma Den. Sweet, sweet Skooma!

* ''TheSimpsons'' Halloween episode set in [[JackTheRipper Ripperian]] [[VictorianLondon London]] features one as the lair of Monty Burns.
* {{Futurama}}'s Bender visits one with his friend Fender (it substitutes electricity for opium).

* In ''Brick'', the area behind Carrow's Restaurant where Dode and the other stoners hang out is intended to reference this, as evidenced by the Asian-sounding musical cues.

* Pip sinks into dissolution and decay in ''BleakExpectations'' and ends up in an opium den, thinking it's a Chinese restaurant. "Would you like some complimentary prawn crack?"

* In ''SweeneyTodd'', Anthony passes by one while traveling through London.

* ''DoctorWho'': "The Talons of Weng-Chiang".

* [[{{Wutai}} Kyo]] has one in ''SagaFrontier''. [[spoiler:Black X runs its drug operations out of it.]]

* CharlesDickens' ''{{The Mystery of Edwin Drood}}'' begins in one.

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* MenAtWork's ''LandDownUnder'' has one of these.

* Lau runs one of these in {{Kuroshitsuji}}.