M 86
Appendix I,
DRUG ADDICTION AND DRUG TRAFFIC IN HONG KONG.
1. During the year under review the following narcotic drugs were seized by the Revenue authorities:-
Opium raw
Opium, prepared
Heroin
Heroin pills
27,084 taels (2,257 lbs.)
12,758 taels (1,063 lbs.) 30.11/15 ounces
2,713,181
2. Neither morphine, cocaine nor cannabis indica were obtained in drug raids made during the year.
3. 446 opium addicts were treated during the year at the Tung Wah Eastern Hospital. Of these patients only two remained in hospital more than twenty days, the average duration of stay in hospital being nine days. The method of treatment employed was the intramuscular injection of blister fluid, but as these patients are difficult to control it is quite impossible to assess the value, if any, of the treatment. Another factor which militates against efficient treatment of these addicts is the ease with which opium can be smuggled into the Chinese hospitals. Cases of addiction have also been treated in the Queen Mary Hospital, but only ten cases were admitted during the year and only one of these was a private patient. The results are reported as—seven cases relieved, two cases unchanged and one still under treatment. The routine treatment adopted was withdrawal and auto-serotherapy on the Modinos principle.
4. The attendance of addicts at the out-patient clinics has declined because of the withholding of the stock anti-opium mixture which contains ten minims of tincture of opium in each ounce, and was formerly responsible for a high attendance at out-patient clinics.
5. It seems that the opium smoking indulged in by members of the coolie class is not, in itself, a very deleterious habit, although it is certainly harmful in that it lessens the amount of money which the family can spend on food. The average daily amount spent on opium by coolies who smoke it, is 10-50 cents.
6. The whole question of narcotic drugs and their abuse in Hong Kong is in a very unsatisfactory condition. At the moment anyone can go into a Chinese restaurant, ask for opium and get it, and as long as this state of affairs obtains it is not likely that efforts to reduce the number of opium addicts will be successful.
Appendix II.
REFUGEE RELIEF IN 1938.
1. The measures taken during the year to cope with this influx were as follows. The Tung Wah Hospitals Committee, the Street Sleepers Shelter Society, the Society for the Protection of Children, the Salvation Army and various other charitable organisations laboured nobly to improve the lot of these thousands of homeless people, but their combined resources proved inadequate for the task, and finally Government was compelled to take over the greater part of the burden.