CO129-385 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 188

186

(

Where

it has

hire the possible

to cancel existing farms

with the prevention of the danger of

encouraging the use of morphia or cocaine in

place of opium. In 1910, the retail price was raised fifty percent.

Since the annexed print was pre-

pared the system of Government monopoly

has been extended, not only over the whole

of the Federated Malay States but also over

all the other protected states in the

Peninsula with the exceptions of Kelantan

and Trengganu,

The smoking of opium in brothels,

which was a lucrative addition to the

opium farmers' profits, was forbidden before

the Government took the monopoly and has

since been rigidly prohibited.

As regards Hongkong and the Malay

Peninsula the policy of the Government is

to restrict the traffic so far as is

possible. The great danger is that any

more drastic steps will lead to an increase

in the far more deadly habit of morphia

injection