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2. Reference to the draft memorandum which is pub- lished at the same time as this bill will show the action which is being taken on the Convention. The draft in question intended as a statement of what will have become the position after the enactment of the legislation now proposed.
3. A draft of certain proposed regulations is also pub- lished at the same time as this bill. These regulations will bring the Hong Kong regulations into line with the latest English regulations.
4. Clauses 2 and 3 of the hill alter the definitions of the terms exportation and importation in the following
ways:
(a) Conveyance by air is included.
(4) Conveyance in transit mails is included.
(c) The present definitions refer only to "carriage" and this might be held not to apply to the case of a packet of drugs thrown across the land frontier. The case is perhaps unlikely, but the words otherwise despatch" and *otherwise bring" are inserted with a view to covering it.
5. The new section 3 (1) of the principal Ordinance which is to be enacted by clause 6 of this bill is based on section (1) of the Opium Ordinance, 1923, as enacted by section 2 of the Opium Amendment Ordinance, 1924, but it contains the following additional points :-
(a) The prohibitions of the sub-section are ex- pressly extended to the cases where the other party to the transaction is not in the Colony. (5) It is made an offence to deal with the drugs to which the Ordinance applies as well as to deal in them.
(e) It is made an offence to pretend to deal in any of the drugs to which the Ordinance applies. This is intended to meet a possible defence that the accused had no real intention of dealing in dangerous drugs but was only pretending to do so with some other object.
(d) The prohibitions of this sub-section are expressly made to apply whether it is intended that the drug in question should be imported into the Colony or not.
6. Clause 8 of the bill amends section 6 (1) of the principal Ordinance so as to make the absolute discretion of the Superintendent perfectly clear, and also as to give bim power to revoke any licence or authority already granted.
7. Section 9 of the principal Ordinance is strengthened. by clause 9 of the bill in the following ways:-
(a) The possession of the keys of any box, drawer
or other receptacle containing a drug to which the Ordinance applies is made presumptive evidence of possession of the drug with guilty knowledge.
(b) The possession of a baggage receipt or of any thing intended to serve the purpose of a bag- gage receipt is similarly made presumptive evidence of possession with guilty knowledge (e) A new sub-section (3) provides that the pre- sumptions of section 9 cannot be rebutted by proof that the accused never had physical possession of the drug in question.