In a very solid and well researched article, the author makes a contribution to the historiography of indenture by understanding the indentured labourer not simply as a worker but as a consumer and contributor to the coffers of the colonial state by taxes paid on goods consumed. In this new focus, the author probes how opium consumption by Chinese and Indian indentured workers was perceived by a range of interested parties such as the colonial officials, missionaries and the press and the racial stereotyping of workers. The article shows how the state with self-interest at the fore moved from restriction to regulation. Through an extensive use of sources such as custom returns, excise records and official reports we are provided irrefutable evidence of how consumption of opium by indentured workers actually helped the funding of indentured labour itself. The article goes well beyond the narrow question of substance abuse and the moral question. It is an original piece of work which will lead scholars to think about indenture differently and beyond the well-established debates about how free indentured workers were and the extent of their agency.