Official Chinese resistance to opium was strengthened on September 20; 1906; with an anti-opium initiative intended to eliminate the drug problem within ten years. The program relied on the turning of public sentiment against opium; with mass meetings at which opium paraphernalia was publicly burned; as well as coercive legal action and the granting of police powers to organizations such as the Fujian Anti-Opium Society. Smokers were required to register for licenses for gradually reducing rations of the drug.

The program was counted as a substantial success; with a cessation of direct British opium exports to China (but not Hong Kong and most provinces declared free of opium production. Nonetheless; the success of the program was only temporary; with opium use rapidly increasing during the disorder following the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916