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BRITISH BULLETIN
OF THE
Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.
(For securing the Effective Control of Opium and Kindred Drugs in accordance with the Recommendations of the Hague International Opium Convention, 1912.)
APRIL, 1929.
INDIAN PROVERB.
"The only satisfactory point at which to cut off a snake's tail is just behind the ears."
This Eastern proverb has often occurred to us in reading the somewhat wearisome news of the pro- ceedings of the Advisory Committee on Opium at Geneva.
We do not recall any period in the history of the campaign against dangerous drugs when, within the same space of time, we have had to read so many and such lengthy reports, press cuttings, pamphlets and official documents as the last three months. And what is the impression left on the mind? Just this: that the nations are really awaking to a sense of the interna- tional peril-while, at Geneva, a little coterie of dele- gates whom it is not always easy to recognise as cham- pions in a great fight-looking sometimes more like preservers of that which they profess to destroy-play their part, and retire for a while, leaving us to wonder what they have achieved.
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We ventured to say in our last issue that we looked forward hopefully to the accomplishment of something effective at the meeting in January. Now we have to add that we are more than a little disappointed. The best comments we have come across are those of the Journal de Genève and the Gazette de Lausanne. Both of these are very close observers, locally and sympathe- tically, and they have expressed themselves as amazed at the apparent disregard of facts, the distrust of those who professed to do something effective, and the post- ponement or open rejection of plans which might, after discussion, have been accepted with modifications.
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Take, e.g., the "Scheme of Stipulated Supply," sent from California to Washington-commended by the United States Government to the Hague-and for- warded by the Dutch Government to Geneva. It is not for us at this moment to express an opinion on the Scheme, but it was for the Advisory Committee to treat it with the courtesy due to the hands through which it had passed. But Sir John Campbell (India) said, "My definite proposal is that the matter should simply be dropped," and Sir Malcolm Delevigne (Great Britain) added, “I agree that the thing to do with this Scheme is to bury it."
And, according to Dr. Martin, of War- saw, in an article in the Messager Polonais, Sir John
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Campbell went so far as to declare that its author should have been punished.
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Now, we wonder what will be the effect of such a mode of dealing with proposals by men and groups sincerely desirous of seeing something done by the Ad- visory Committee. What will the United States say as to Sir John Campbell's treatment of a Scheme which its Government has thought worthy of consideration? What, again, of a fact such as this-that, on Febru- ary 15th, the Hon. Stephen G. Porter carried in the House of Representatives the following resolution :—
That the President is hereby respectfully requested to make further representations to the Powers party to the Hague Opium Convention who have failed to make effective the aims and provisions thereof, making clear to them the expectations of the Government and People of the United States that all countries party to said Convention-recognizing as they did in that Con- vention the necessity for such action-will make eflec- tive the provisions of that Convention, to the end that the manufacture and sale of morphine, cocaine, heroin and other habit-forming derivations of opium and coca- leaves within their jurisdiction may be strictly limited to medicinal and scientific needs by measures of control designed to prevent their sale to those engaged in the illicit drug traffic.
In case of failure to meet these expectations the President is respectfully requested to notify such coun- tries so failing that the Covernment of the United States will find it necessary to take such action as the circumstances may require to meet the situation then arising.
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When this news reached us from America, and we remembered the dropping of Mr. Wang King-Ky's statement on behalf of the Nationalist Government of China (to which we shall refer presently), which, though brushed aside by the Advisory Committee, will probably be heard of again, we began to ask ourselves the question, Is the time approaching when the Ad- visory Committee will find itself between the upper millstone of the West and the nether millstone of the East, amid the applause of all
the