sentences:  The next year, as the only Hmong member of the Opium Purchasing Board, he oversaw the institution of a new tax that was payable in opium for those farmers who were too poor to pay in cash.At the time, many Hmong, like other ethnic minorities in the region, cultivated poppies and sold the extracted opium as a cash crop.The French colonial authorities relied on taxes from the opium trade to fund infrastructure projects and draw revenue from the colonies.