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system one certainly gets a good control over the buying of opium, but the police are not put in a position to exercise sufficient supervision on the transport and export of the quantities, permitted on the identification-cards, bought.
Equally little could a finished licence-system be thought of. Preference was therefore given to an intermediate system, whereby the possession of opium is also only allowed on the strength of a permit issued by or on behalf of the Resident, but which is more elastic than the finished system. Thus no full stipulations are included in the relative decrees re- garding the issue and text of the permits. The breach of the conditions subject to which the permit was issued how- ever is made punishable. It is therefore easier to make alterations, if altered circumstances or discovered abuses make that necessary or if a stricter control is considered possible. To facilitate the supervision, and to curtail the preparatory work, a personal permit need not be given im- mediately to each opium-smoker, but a combined permit can for instance be given to the head of a family on behalf of members of that family, and if necessary to an employer for his opium-smoking employees. Moreover, conditions regard- ing the transport of the opium are included in the permit, and in regard to that it is as a rule stipulated, that it may not be carried outside the subdistrict in question. The Police can therefore confiscate opium, which is carried for instance per train or along the road from Batavia to Tandjong Priok contrary to that condition.
To limit the consumption and also to simplify the control it is further only permissible for a licensee to provide him- self once a day with opium *). In large places further, opium may only be sold on a buying-card belonging to the permit. The buying-card is periodically renewed. **) The licensees do not always require to come themselves to buy but can order this to be done by a servant or a member of the household;
*) This rule has since been introduced in the districts where a fin-
ished licence-system is in force.
**) Specimens of licence and buying-card are included as appendices II
and III.
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the sending along of the licence to the opium shop is also unnecessary; only the buying-card requires to be brought along. At the introduction, arrangements were made, whereby it was possible for those, who did not wish publicly to ask a permit (e.g. well-to-do Chinese women, persons of stand- ing, and such like) to apply if necessary direct to the Controller of the Opium-regie or an official of the anti-opium service through the intermediary of a relative. Licences have even been issued on which only a number appears, and not the name of the licensee; this person is then only known to the official who issued the permit. It is not made too diffi- cult for those who are passers-through and the crews of ships, to obtain opium. Travellers, who cannot do without opium can, for so far as they are also required to have a licence in their town of residence, bring this, or otherwise a paper issued on behalf of the Official in charge of the district, on showing which they can obtain a card for a specified period here, while those who have to stay here re- peatedly can apply for a licence for the use of opium.
This was based on the principle, that the endeavour must be to restrict the use of opium throughout Java, and to control it, and that it is only then of use to prohibit some one, who in one place is allowed to smoke opium, from doing so in another licence-area, when the number of licensees in the latter is only so small, that it can be expected, that within a short time that district can be entirely closed to opium.
The system therefore does not compel the bonafide consumer to have recourse to smuggled opium. But it formed an obstacle to those who were accustomed to buy much more opium than their income would allow them to do, and who destined most of the opium bought for re-sale or forbidden export to other parts of Netherlands India.
An unfinished licence-system has also been introduced in the still not closed portion of the plantation-area of the East Coast of Sumatra. Also in that district the revenue from opium greatly increased. There were indications that some of the opium bought was clandestinely carried to Banka and other districts with stringent restrictive measures. Upon
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