THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN OPIUM.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I. The Royal Commission on Opium in India
CHAPTER II. The Production of Opium in India -
1
4
CHAPTER III. The Consumption of Opium in India
8
CHAPTER IV.-Opium Smoking in India proper and Burma
CHAPTER V. The Export of Opium from India
13
16
CHAPTER VI.-The Hague Convention
29
CHAPTER VII.-The Position of India in relation to the World's
Opium Problem'
38
BIBLIOGRAPHY
TABLES.
Acreage under poppy in British India and Indian Stater, with statistics
of opium production -
Consumption of opium in British India, Excise Revenue, issue price of
excise opium, and quantities that individuals may possess Quantities of prepared opium that individuals may possess Number of chests and destinations of opium exported during the
period 1870-1920
7-8
11-12
•
14
27-28
Revenue from sales of opium for export
28
Comparative table showing opium revenue in relation to gross
revenues of British India
20
i
77
THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIAN OPIUM.
CHAPTER I.
THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON OPIUM IN INDIA. In India, apart from Burma, which will be discussed separately, opium is generally eaten in the form of pills, and in some parts it is dissolved in water and drunk, It is the ordinary domestic medicine of the people, great numbers of whom are unaccustomed to, or beyond the reach of, skilled medical treatment, and it is a medicine of which they could not be deprived without very great suffering. It is largely used in the malarial tracts as a prophylactic against fever, and is a great aid to endurance; the fisherman swallows his opium pill before entering the water, just as his European brother carries his whisky flask, and the carrier eats opium when on the march. The drug has been commonly employed for hundreds of years, and abuse of its properties is rarer than the abuse of alcohol in Western countries.'
The danger of indulgence always exists, and for many years it has been the policy of the Government of India to guard against this in every possible way. It is the aim of this paper to explain the steps which they have taken and the results which have been achieved.
Opium smoking, which is the common form of consumption in other parts of the East, is on a different footing in India. It is a practice foreign to the country, and was introduced as a form of social indulgence among the disreputable classes. It is regarded as a vicious habit, much on a par with the consump- tion of alcohol, and has been hedged round by Government with restrictions which are little short of prohibition.
The consumption of opium in India dates probably from the 16th century, and a monopoly of the purchase of opium from the cultivators grew up in Bihar under the Mughal Empire. At that time cultivation in other parts of India was apparently aurestricted. The Empire lost hold of the monopoly during the anarchy of the 18th century, but it was carried on in
There is an essential difference between the drug problem in India, and in Europe and Amorica. These latter countries are principally concerned with the problems presented by the vicious consumption of cocaine and morphin, concen. irated drugs far more potent than opium, and it is on the experience of the abuse of these drugs that much of the condemnation Indian policy is based. It may be said that the effects of the consumption of opium in Europe aud America are hardly loss disastrous than those of morphia and cocaine. That is 50, but the reason is that to Americans and Europeana opiuto is an unaccustomed stimulant The habit being both new and strange, it is never used in moderation, bat invariably abused, and the rosnits cannot be compared with the results of moderate opium eating in India. Opium in the West is as dangerous as alcobol in the East, and for the same reason It has not been suggested that the evil effects of alcohol in Africa afford a sound argument in favour of prohibition in England.
4983
2000 4.22
A 2
28.