THE
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MAY 1957.
HONGKONG HEROIN
the killer that supplanted opium
011
cane-
Robin Hutcheon FT These pods and stalks were once opium poppies
follows the devastating trall of a man-made` mari- breaking menace-the most ancient, most cruel on earth, and one of the most profitable--the trail of the International Drug trafficker, and the effects of his business in Hongkong.
Hongkong is one of the big drug-junctions of the East. But this is a story that begins far from Hongkong's shores in the Middle and Near East, and, in the
steaming hidden valleys of the lawless Shan States where the frontiers of China, Burma, Thalland, and Laos meat. From Hongkong the trail goes on to Japan, and the rich markets of the United States. This is the story of a train of ruin left behind by a few most heartless, most cruel, most ruthless men who will do ANYTHING IN THE WORLD FOR PROFIT.
And it is u way of escaping i know of a boy of 13 who from ille,"
has been addicled for two years In that one individual the spending $6-$7 a day on heroin. whole problem of heroin Ho took to it when his father addiction in this Colony is died. He earned the money- reflected. There is a dally almost $5,000—by begging and on the muster of about 80 prisoners at to save rent he slept
Of these 30-40 Centrai,
are streets. drug addicts, not necessarily in on drug offences but roughly From a social worker I heard half the male prison population of an old amab smoking heroin
Fot themselves
in the lth of the walled city for ostin for two weeks, directly or indirectly by heroin, in Kowloon. On her back was Of all the people Inter a crying chlidate passed her allow the prison doctor to taper viewed only one was prepared cigarette over her shoulder and oft his addiction, bul the to estimate the chances are that when he
in the addicts
Colony. His
This was his fifth spel; in
He was in
have
number
there
of
put it to the child's lips "that's how it starts,” he added.
NHE most striking thing was his colour. He had the colour of marble literally blue
pallor of a marble statue. He sat
the
grey, I noticed as he walked covered chair in a thick khaki drill uniform shivering. of his ankles and his heels were out of the room that the backs Outside the prison aurgery the temperature Was 70 the same colour, degrees and the doctor sat in his shirt sleeves firing questions,
He held out his hands.
His finger tips switched. His throat tautered and relaxed as he swallowed often. And there was fear in his pale, flickering eyes.
sacked from the Police for was discharged he would guess it could not be anything I do not mean to imply that sleeping on duty, And
he go back If not to tout clse is that there are as many heroin is found exclusively in. estimated that recently he'd ng almost certainly to heroin. as
as 50,000,
This man-a doctor the shuns though it is a pre- been spending $13 day Less than five per cent of the —handles all the addicts who dominantly poor man's problem smoking.
addicts discharged after prison come lo prison. He's been and is found chiefly in
places He earned It touting, picking treatment manage to resist the doing it for the last nine years like Kowloon City, the Walled up American sailors and leading
and he knows enough about City, Shamshulpo and Shaut- them to tailor shops-and per-
It is found also among out an addict in the street,
doctors, haps bars and low dives.
housewives, Dusinessmen, far- mors - and Over
a priest. But these are exceptions.
His shock of prison-cut hair stood on end like charred corn stalku,
hit
of
#
Jure.
drug addiction to be able to pick wanike students,
NO ONE CAN GUESS the quantity
A curious stain like nicoline or lodine had dyed brown the index and second Anger and thumb of his right hand.
He got that stain chasing
This man had no prospect of the dragon," sald the doctor.
any other work. His wife had That meant
method
left him because of his uddle- amolding was to follow with an
MAN OF SMOKE Uơn, He has five convielions inhaling tube the curling spiral
ngainst him and the only sure of heroin smoke thrown off by
blue gray Incomo he knows 18 from
The vast majority of drug a smouldering pellet in an im-
American escorting
sailors
No one can guess the quantity cases are treated at prison provised alivesfoll tray. In this When he started smoking he around Hongkong
of heroin elrculating in Hong- hospitals, At Stanley last year, Ongo he took it four times
could not manage one dose A "Heroin
the edgo of kong. It is made here; it 19 for example, 8,8z9 were treated day.
day, but now at 28 the heroin reality," sald the doctor, also imported, but again imports against 37 in Zour public He was
Chinese, aged 28. smoke appeared to have seeped "That's one reason why they canno
cannot be assessed; and it hospitala. He'd been a heroin addict for through every part of his fall, take it. It is a stimulant and passes through the Colony en There is at least one private six years-ever, since ho was skinny body turning him the revivifer. It also relieves pain,
route to Japan and finally America, where oplum, from which it is derived,
fetches something
Uke 20 times its port of origin price,
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But there is enough heroin
in Hongkong to provido the
needs of all its addicts.
Heroin is cheap. It can
bought in a very diluted form
organisation, testing oachiots--in Kowloon City, an one social worker aro 200 dives,
bo
J
and its most common price
BROG (Ieru
Claims Inert
AN ADDICT'S CENTRE rehabilitation
This organisation is known as
50 cents a small dose. Average the China. Native Evangelistin expenditure, however,
An ranges Crusade,
attempt 19
from: $5 to $8 a day for men also being made to zonacilitate and slightly more for women. addicts at this centro,
During
the course of this i carta from the Rev. J. Investigation the lowest daily Russu Killmon that two weeks' expenditure i encountered was treatment
Costa abona
Ꮧ
$1. and, tho, highest $10, the $230. latter by a prostitute who had It is difficult to say whether been taking it for 18 years ing
the heroin problem is still get- works out at almost $500
worse, Some authores a month.
siy it is because of worsening economic conditions in the
others Colony;
terrent
to
Poverty, however, is no
adalction.
de- The
are
majority of addiets are in the treated for drug, adelletion- poorest classes. One prison
commital. The number of men
doctor told me 50 per cent on in 1956 whe
double
more than
were coolies and hawkers and seizures rose between 1908 and the 1955 number. the Stanley prison figures for 1955 from two to more than 36 1955 bear this out of 3,414 treated, 1,802 were from
The kilograme but fell last year to an in- creased number of arrests were
140
coolle-hawker class. Another 20 kilograms, although
400
in Were semi-skilled
unskilled and made. Morphine a21ci raw trades and just oplum epizures showed a similar over 900 were skilled trades,
employed in Kammer, big seizures of both
Now look at the women raw opfum and morphine have addicts: of 325 treated in Lai- bean medio this year, Police chikok Hospital, 189 - were claim seizures are still at a very prostitutes, 84 were casual high level, which reffects possibly workers, di were servants and a continuing high level of im- 21 hawkers,
parts
as well "as increasingly efficient methods of detection. GO TO ANY LENGTHS is not getting worse, drugs are But it the addiction problem
}
for money
becoming more and more di- to detect. Eight ounces of prove that, compressed
morphine looks addicts will go to almost muxy
recorda
Prison
length to get money
to
like a large cake of buy soup and can at comfortably in drugs and all have one thing in a jacket pocket. That might common: they spend much more make os many as 100,000 doses than an avenge working clam in a very adulterated form.
man or woman carna.
י
The terrible irony is that in many coats their initial reason for taking drugs is some kind of pain in other canes TL Yot some have spent more money
§.
EASY TO SMUGGLE
a killer
on dope than they would have At the time of importation needed to fly first class to Lon- opium is far cosier to detent don or New York to get expert, because it arrives in builk con- treatment. It is not powalble to signments, of several Irundroel work out accurate expenditure pounds at a time. Morphine
overy cone but I catinisated cornes An
relatively
smaller
In the case of one woman she quantities. . had spent something Ме But $100,000 over a period of 18 fast noo early 1985 when the weizure of morphine was und made in the Colony from sger plane at Kai Tak, dis particular with the highest fineidenon drug kung been riving in, in- among man between 35 and 60
yeanz
Heroin addicts are of
but in woman it is between 22 pers.
addicted
Cont
of
origens Polico COLL prostitutes (rouging 50 Lider this in Omnirious sign and per
of the total) accounts how much more congiloated". It for thie bieber incidence among maices, theken worke Young Women.
Bale I "Among mm, there is, accord-i tell you how: hérolit, In ing to one medioni expert, to have come to a Komplona, evidence to show that boys something of the dang, thielf and Apaz. 18. upwards are getting on why it, a killer has been able to herolit, but, the relative, pro- tootsit from favour the coen~ portion is still very small" paratively Innocuous opium
COPYRIGHT STRICTLY RESERVED CHAPTER TWO FOLLOWS ON MONDAY
(passos-on
later into