(c) Eating opium.
(4.) Morphia.
12
In
seems then to be a distinct probability that alcohol may replace opium.* Hongkong the danger of alcohol as a substitute for opium is a real one since cheap liquor-shops abound. Opium is a sedative which tends to inaction, and there is a concensus of opinion, that it is responsible for no crime, while alcohol is a stimulant which disposes towards aggressive action and admittedly produces crime. The effects of opium are rarely visible and are never seen in public places. Drunkenness on the contrary is a cause of inconvenience in the public streets, and is a degrading spectacle.
A second alternative to the use of alcohol to replace the smoking of opium is found in the eating of the drug-a method hitherto practically unknown in China. The many
kinds of anti-opium" pills which have been distributed gratis or sold in vast quantities throughout China are all said to contain opium, and thus the habit of eating instead of smoking has been encouraged. This as Sir John Jordan points out is a far more dangerous practice and infinitely harder to eradicate. Dr. Main, C.M.S., is quoted in the public Press as stating that whereas his Mission formerly always had a large number of persons under treatment for the cure of the habit they have ceased to come now that these pills can be procured.‡
Another still more deplorable substitute is morphia whether consumed internally or injected hypodermically. Dr. Morrison, correspondent of The Times, bears witness to the immense increase in the consumption of morphia,-and lays special stress on the fact that its importation cannot be checked by an increase in duties. In 1994 the duties were raised from 5% to 200% and the recorded import fell from 195,133 oz. in 1902 to 96 ozs. in 1907, but there is no reason, he says, to doubt that at the present time the import is nearer to ten tons (smuggled). He adds that "orders have been given for 1,000 lbs. weight in one transaction the morphia being packed in 7, 14, 21, and 28 lb. tins, four in a case. This smuggling is wholesale, while Chinese returning from Borneo, Java, Malay and Siam in a large number of cases bring back morphia as savings to China". The morphia is I believe ordered wholesale (chiefly from London) and transhipped at sea for smuggling.§
The Powers have recently agreed that from 1.1.09, the importation of morphia into China shall be prohibited, while both they and China undertake not to manufacture it in China. The Chinese Government thereupon issued elaborate instructions to regulate the import for medicinal purposes. These Regulations will no doubt be operative as regards the 96 oz. legitimately imported, but since China has already shewn herself so entirely powerless to check smuggling over her 7,000 miles of land and 4,000 miles of sea frontier, it is to be feared that little benefit will accrue from this convention. The Government of Hong- kong has however, at once come forward to assist so far as it can. Regula- tions to control more effectively the transit trade have been issued, making it obligatory to obtain a license and to declare port of destination, and establishing one Government warehouse only,
• The increase in the Imports of wine, beer, and spirits into Canton is shewn by the following figures from the
Customs returns:-
Taels
1897. 24,527
1902. 48,857
1907. 209,744.
The Straits Commission state that there is already an increase in consumption of alenhol among Straits born Chinese, and the probibition of opium would increase it among Chinese generally. § 149. It is stated that the import of opium in the Federated Malay States has decreased by $93,000 while the
import of alcoholio liquors increased by $355,000.
†The Bishop of London stated in the House of Lords that 90 to 93% of the prisoners in one British Gaol were brought there by drink. The Lunacy Commissioner ascribed 22% of lunatics to the same cause, -apart from hereditary dipsomaniacs. It should be remembered moreover that it is foreign merchants who import the liquor into Chiua,-while they import only 1 of the opium. Hansard 1903 Vol. 197 p. 326. Mr. Justice Walton, presiding at a Meeting on January 25th at Lincoln's Inn, said that as the result. of a long experience he was led to the conclusion that more than 99% of the trials for crimes of violence had their origin in intemperance". (Timex 26.1.09.)
The Straits Commission state it as their view that smoking is by far the least deleterious method of using Opium-only a small part of the alkaloids being absorbed. $326. Smoking of "Droas" is worse than pure Opium, and the custom of eating * Drosa" is worst of all. § 251.
The official returns shew an average import for five years prior to 1904 of 141,861 oz. and for the years 1901-1907 of 174 oz. only. Of the import in 1902 (195,133 oz) the United Kingdom and Hongkong hetween the imported 95 8% (United Kingdom 149,726 oz., Hongkong 37,205 oz.) la 1903 they imported 85.7 % Though the Customs only shew 51 oz. as imported in 1905 the "distribution through each Customs Districo" shews 14,007 oz. for that year-a proof of smuggling. Prior to 1901 almost the whole was imported into Shanghai,-since that year the total for 3 years is dé oz.! (through the Customs).
13
+
The present exports to all countries through Hongkong amounted to about 400 cases in 1907,-to which may be added the trade in "opium compounds' (which are chiefly opium and morphia pills), amounting in 1906 and 1997 to an average of 7,938 lbs.
338
anti-opiotu
Morphia is not only imported in a liquid form for injection, but also in the Morphia in insidious form of so-called “anti-opinm pills, which are sold in vast quantities, pills. as a cure for opium smoking. The Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs states that these morphia pills are obtainable in every medicine shop in Canton and their sale is increasing. The offer of a reward of Tls. 15 for every 12 oz. detected produced no result, and proves how lucrative the business is. The Consul General at Canton sent me some samples of pills for analysis. They contained leis al 2% and 3 grain (13 to 17 grammes). The Viceroy acting on the orders of the Central Government thereupon issued a Proclamation, directing that a scheme must be devised for the supervision of all shops selling anti-opium pills, the amounts of sales reduced, and the analysis more carefully made. He particularly laid emphasis upon the fact that in my letter to the Consul General I had pointed ont that the vendors of the pills were in many cases exhibiting sign-boards stating that they were sold under Government authority, and in that case the Chinese Government were merely substituting a worse form of opium consumption, after obtaining from India and the British Colonies, under false pretences, a co- operation which seriously affected their Revenue.* Thirty samples of pills from Shanghai were also recently analysed at the request of Sir A. Hosie. In 17 samples each pill contained from 1 to 1, of a grain of morphine, the remainder (all but two) contained lesser quantities.
The Government Analyst in Hongkong has found as much as 26% of mor- phia in some of the anti-opium pills imported for sale here, but the local restrictions to which I shall presently allude have been effective in excluding any containing more than about 16% from the market.
* *
Dr. Graham Asplund writing from Peking has addressed a very striking appeal on this subject to the China Times. He says:- "Anti-opium tabloids contain morphia in large doses.* They are sold and prepared by a British firm doing both wholesale and retail business here in China. How many tous of morphia tabloids are being sold in China at this present moment I would not like to venture to guess, but I am prepared to believe it is appalling.*
* Even in remote country villages morphin tabloids and hypodermic syringes are frequently seen, and a condition of things which allows a Chinaman I know to buy daily a dram bottle of Japanese morphia (60 grains) imperatively calls for restriction if not probibition. There can be no extenuating circumstances associated with the sale of these 'anti-opium tabloids' for I have not found one that contained any antidotal drug-any stimulant or tonic ingredients, but simply morphia made into a tabloid with ordinary household flour, so that the sale is not accompanied with any honest intention of relieving the suffering, but finding that there is a big market for morphia under the name of anti-opium tabloids and powders foreign trading companies
follow this lucrative trade under the heading of benefactors," The writer goes on to quote from "the recent Editorial of the China Medical Journal" a scathing denunciation of the Trade in "patent medicines" which "reeks with filth and stinks to heaven with its gross and abominable selfishness".
**
* *
of the
What the danger is may be gathered from the report of the Government Magnitude Analyst male after careful enquiry by my instructions, as to the comparative danger. quantities and cost of the four methods of indulgence. He endorses the statement that 4 mace of opium (233) grains) may be considered as an excess smoker's quantun, as being in accordance with his own observations :-
Smoking. Eating opium. Eating morphia. Injected morphia Quantity in grains, 233) (4 mace)—12
$1.39
----7 cents.
Cost
2
- cents 14 cents
The words of the Proclamation in this connection are as follow:-
"The Governor of Hongkong in his reply to the Consul General remarked that if the sale of such "remedies was officially countenanced the assurances of the Chinese Government of their "determination to stamp out the drug were meaningless, and it practically amounted to the "substitution andì sanction of one form of the opium habit instead of another. He expressed. "great anxiety as to whether the Provincial High Authorities were cognisant of the sale of "such pills, and as to the nature of the analysis to which they were subject by the Kuan I Cħo.”
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