15
2
seized in the year of report, and the cocaine habit is said to have come to stay. Small quantities were seized in the Myaungmya and Ma-ubin Districts, and the taste for the drug is said to be firmly established in the Yandoon and Danubyu townships of the latter district. In the Prapon district with seizures of 4,594 grains the combined efforts of the Excise and Police have checked the habit in Kyaiklat town for the time, but attempts are being made to introduce the drug into other parts of the district. Seizures in the Henzada district have risen from 7,528 grains to 11,532 grains, the taste for the drug is said to be on the increase and the habit is spreading to places outside Henzada. In the Toungoo district seizures have risen from 8,275 grains to 8,441 grains. Offenders were arrested in all the railway towns, but the drug is not yet known in the interior townships of the district. In the Yamethin district 15 cases were detected during the year and seizuros have increased from 2,103 grains to 3,733 grains. The largest seizures were made in Pyinmana town, and the habit has not yet spread far north of Pyinmana. Vigorous and sustained efforts are being made by the Excise staff in all the districts in which cocaine is found to prevent the smuggling of this drug and to stop the spread of the habit. So far the habit is said to be confined to the Pegu and Irrawaddy divisions and to the Toungoo and Yamethin districts on the line of railway, but there is a very real danger of further growth if additional preventive measures are not taken at once. As stated in last year's Report more Excise officers are urgently needed in Rangoon Town and the adjoining districts, and provision for heavier punishments is required in the penal sections of the Excise Act relating to intoxicating drugs. No sanction has yet been received to the proposals made to these ends. Burma is not the only country in which the abuse of cocaine has arisen and the possibility of control over the centres in which the drug is manufactured seems worth consideration. Many of the cocaine-consumers are people of the lowest classes who have hitherto been addicted to opium, but it is doubtful whether the restrictions on opium con- sumption have any close connection with the growth in the taste for cocaine. As pointed out by the Deputy Commissioner, Henzada district, with cocaine at such a high illict price as Rs. 120 per ounce, the ordinary half-grain dose of cocaine costs 2 annas only, whereas little effect is to be derived from 2 annas worth of illicit opium. If opium is to compete successfully with cocaine in the illicit market the present restrictive policy must be abandoned, and even if such a course were practicable it is doubtful whether there would be any real or permanent reduction in cocaine consumption. An expenditure of Rs. 2,344 was incurred from secret service funds on the detection of cocaine- smuggling, chiefly in the Rangoon Town, Pega, Tharrawaddy and Henzada Districts.
Enclosure No. 2.]
Extract paragraph 6 of a letter from the Financial Commissioner, Burma, to the Government of Burma, No. 603-5R-95, dated the 15th August 1910.
6. Paragraphs 42 to 44.-The growth of the consumption of cocaine gives rise to much apprehension. In proportion of value to bulk and in portability it is superior to opium. It has no strong smell which needs to be disguised. The habit of consuming it is undoubtedly spreading. The drug is compar atively new, and the Excise Commissioner's proposal to procure control of its manufacture is worthy of support. The early enactment of the new Excise Act is also to be desired so as to provide heavier penalties for the illicit sale of cocaine. The morphia habit seems to have received a check.
Enclosure No. 3.]
Extract paragraph 5 of the Besolution by the Government of Burma, No. 1-0-8, dated the 25th September 1910.
Cocaine.
5. Although opium and liquor occupy 36 paragraphs of the Report and only one is devoted to cocaine it is evident special prominence. The Lieutenant Governor regards with the utmost concern that this problem is speedily assuming
>
3
the growing consumption of this drug, the effects of which are most pernicious. It is admitted that the consumption, which is wholly illicit, is spreading fast. New districts were invaded by the drug and its use became confirmed in other places where hitherto it had been only sporadic. Seizures of contraband cocaine in Rangoon Town rose from 313,191 grains in 1908-09 to 778,281 grains in 1909-10, and for the rest of the province from 76,445 to 161,404 grains. These figures illustrate the spread of the drug outside of Rangoon. The same is shown by the greatly increased seizures reported in the Pegu, Tharrawaddy, Prome and in less degree the Pyapon and Henzada districts. The difficulties in the detection of smuggling of the drug are, as the Financial Commissioner remarks, much greater than in the case of opium. The profit to be made is as yet larger. There is no competition from licit supply. Fur thermore cocaine costs relatively less to the consumer. The Excise Commis- sioner does not think that the reduction of the supply of opium has stimulated the use of cocaine, but the Lieutenant Governor doubts whether this opinion is correct. Although it cannot be inferred with certainty that the simultaneous decrease in the consumption of opium and increase in the consumption of cocaine are related as cause and effect it is significant that many of the con- sumers of cocaine were previously opium consumers and that opium dens are said to have become places in which cocaine is now also supplied. It is further a well known fact that persons addicted to the taking of stimulants if deprived of one kind will have recourse to another, a fact which has been amply demonstrated in Burma by the introduction of fresh varieties of intoxicating drugs to replace others prohibited by law. His Honour therefore fears that there is ground for the opinions expressed by the Commissioner of the Pegu division and the Deputy Commissioners of the Tharrawaddy and Prome districts that the check in opium consumption has led to an increase in the cocaine habit and he cannot disguise from himself the serious character of this result. On the other hand the use of morphia does not seem to have increased; but the seizures of ganja imported into Rangoon rose from 10,855 tolas to 35,143 tolas and throughout the province from 77,247 tolas to $3,533 tolas. The revised Excise Act will probably provide enhanced penalties for possession and will enable den-keepers and habitual traffickers in all such drugs to be dealt with. The main resistance, however, must come from the preventive action of the Excise Department; but it is evident that the present establish- ment is unequal to additional burdens.
Enclosure No. 4.]
Extract paragraph 87 of the Bengal Excise Administration Report for the year 1909-10.
87.
In Calcutta the quantity of cocaine seized was 452 oz., against 723 oz. in the previous year. Of this quantity 343 oz. were in their original phials and found pure, the remainder was in retail packets, more or less adulterated and was destroyed as unfit for medical use. In regard to the large number of cases detected and the quantity of cocaine seized, the Superin- tendent of Excise Revenue, Calcutta, Mr. Baboneau, makes the following remarks:-
"If the number of cases detected and the quantity of the illicit drug seized are any index to the volume of the illicit trade, I am afraid the above figures must be interpreted as a great expansion in the illicit trade and consumpt ion of the drug. Some allowance may be made for zeal and success of detective officers, but that alone cannot be taken as a sufficient explanation for the enormous increase shown by the above figures. The only conclusion I can come to is that those desirous of obtaining the drug have now devised and developed other means for obtaining their supplies. Chief amongst these are the employés on board the vessels that trade between Calcutta and Europe. It
an unfort- unate circumstance, greatly to be regretted, that certain Europeans have been found to be engaged in this nefarious traffic which cannot be too strongly condemned."
**
기
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.