14
The extent to which the price of opium has been raised and the limit of private possession of raw opium reduced was shown in Chapter III. The following table shows the narrow limits and the drastic reductions imposed in each province of India in the case of prepared opium.
Madras
LIMIT OF PRIVATE POSSESSION OF OPICM+ BMOKING PREPARATIONS.
Province.
In the case of
Individuals.
In the case of personst Banen bled for
Bombay
Bengal
Burina
Bihar and Orissa
United Provinces
Punjab
North-West
Province.
Delhi
1911-12.
1920-21.
Frontier
1
Central Provinces
Assam -
Ajner-Merwara
Coorg
-
Baluchistan
*Not specially provided for.
purpose of smoking.
1011-12. 1920-21
Tolas (180 grains).
I
1
# K***
†The figures in the 3rd and 4th columns represent the maximum amount of opium for smoking allowed to an assembly of persons, however large. The total of the individual allowances of the persona assembled in the governing maximKIN until the figures shown in these columns are reached,
The Government of India have always before them the ideal of unqualified and direct prohibition, and have carried out a progressive campaign in this direction. As a result of the recent change in the Government of India Act, the matter has become one for the discretion of Provincial Governments in the first instance, who are showing a keen interest in the question. This has strengthened the hands of the Government of India, and Provincial Governments, who already had before them a pro- posal, cutting at the heart of what is essentially a social practice, to declare illegal any assembly of three or more persons for the purpose of smoking opium, even if that asse ubly consists of members of the same family, have been asked to consider the practicability of entirely prohibiting opium smoking. Replies have already been received from two Governments, those of Madras and the Punjab. The Government of Madras has
15
decided against any measure of prohibition, stating that the amount of local smoking is negligible, but the Government of the Punjab state that they have under consideration legislation to prohibit the practice of smoking in municipal and cantonment
areas.
This account of the regulations on the subject of opium smoking in India needs to be qualified with reference to the case of Burma, which has for many years presented a special and difficult problem.
In Burma, as in China and the Malay Peninsula, opium is more commonly smoked than eaten. Consumption is permitted only to non-Burmans, and to a limited number of Burmese specially registered as opium consumers in Lower Burma. In Upper Burma the sale to, or possession of, opium by Burmese, except for medical purposes, was absolutely prohibited on the annexation of the country in 1886.
It was accepted in 1893 that the consumption of opium was harmful to people of the Burnian race; and in January 1894 the Government entered upon a campaign for the progressive suppression of smoking in Lower Burma, which can only be paralleled, and that on a far smaller scale, by the achievement of the United States of America in the Philippines. It was made penal for Burmans who had not registered themselves as habitual consumers to possess or consume opium, and the issue price of opium was placed at a figure nearly double that fixed in any other province. These restrictions, however, resulted in a large increase in smuggling and Blicit consumption in Burma, and it was decided in 1900 to revise the arrangements. The steps taken were (1) to increase the number of licensed opium shops in Lower Burma; (2) to grant licences for the sale of opium to selected candidates instead of putting them up to auction; (3) to re-open temporarily the lists of registered Burman consumers for the addition of actual consumers who were over
25
years of age in 1893; (4) to organise further efforts against opium smuggling through the agency of the preventive staff and the police.
These measures were brought into effect in April 1902. The result of their working was not found entirely satisfactory. Under the 1894 arrangement 14,600 smokers were registered to these 20,000 were now added. In the last year of the old system 51,428 lbs. of Government opium were consumed in Lower Burma, and the opium receipts were about Rs. 20,00,000. In 1904-05 the receipts were Rs. 46,00,000, and the con- sumption 144,000 lbs. The Government of Burma considered that this merely indicated the supplanting of contraband opium by Government opium, and that the total consumption had not materially increased.
The rules were recast and made more stringent in 1910, while amendments of the law, made in the preceding year,
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