In 1875, San Francisco passed an ordinance banning opium dens, making it a misdemeanor to keep or visit any place where opium was smoked. This was the first anti-narcotics law in the United States, driven by concerns that young white women were being led astray in dens operated by Chinese immigrants, reflecting the racial anxieties of the era.

The 1875 San Francisco ordinance is a pivotal moment in American drug policy, reflecting the racial and moral panics that would shape literary depictions of the Chinese immigrant experience. Writers like Frank Norris and Jack London would depict the opium den as a symbol of urban vice and racial otherness, a trope that persists in American noir and detective fiction.