Any society that could produce alcohol would soon have observes its deleterious effects. In fact, opium residue was found in the Wanli Emperor's body, the opium poppy had been cultivated in the Middle East for millenia and it is impossible that Chinese had no knowledge of this substance by the time the British arrived. Social stagnation during the mid-late Qing Dynasty probably accounted for mass addiction more than the British, it's not like we were the equivalent of Amerindians with no understanding of distillation.

Much of TCM aligns with qigong cults and general Indian-style nationalistic dick-waving more than it does with science (which BTW didn't really exist in premodern times, and I ask you who invented science?). Stop pedantically arguing over semantics and admit that China needs to deal with her own backwardness.