CO129-395 - Public Offices - 1912 — Page 294

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steps are being taken to enhance this still farther by raising the rates of duty in most provinces. I may point out in this connection that every reduction in the area under poppy cultivation facilitates the increase of taxation and the check on consumption which this affords, since it also reduces the zones within which there is special risk of high taxation promoting recourse to illicit opium.

The chief difficulties we have to contend against in maintaining and developing our system are of course those arising from smuggling, but here we are in a much better position than we were a few years ago, for----

(1.) We have materially added to the strength and efficiency of our preventive establishments.

(2.) The progressive reduction of the area under poppy cultivation reduces our difficulties.

(3.) The fact that in most parts of India licit opium must be the Bengal product materially assists the preventive staff. For Bengal and Malwa opium are readily distinguishable, and, except in Bombay, any Malwa opium found in British India must be illicit.

(4.) We have induced the uative States outside the Malwa area to abstain from the cultivation of the poppy and to model their excise systems upon ours where they do not fall in with ours altogether.

Smuggling from the Malwa States is still a danger; but that risk will diminish with the reduction in cultivation consequent on the gradual extinction of the China trade, and through the fact that--apart from humanitarian considerations-the desire to compensate themselves for the loss of revenue formerly derived from production for China will induce the States concerned to raise their taxation on what is left, until this becomes more closely assimilated to ours. Steps have in fact been already taken to this end, as well as for placing the traffic between the various States, and from them into British India, under better control.

In short, our policy is to restrict consumption as far as possible by direct regulation and by taxation; and we have not the slightest intention of diverting production formerly destined for China to internal purposes. On the contrary, as I have shown, the nearer the China trade gets to extension the casier it will be for us to place internal production and consumption under still more efficient control.

On behalf of India, therefore, I can give entire support to the resolution now before the conference, which sets forth the desirability of effective national laws and regulations to control the production and distribution of raw opium.

APPENDIX II.

Memorandum by Sir William Meyer on the Control over the Manufacture, Sale, and Possession of Prepared Opium (Sinoking Preparations) in British India.

In

IN may previous communication on the subject of raw opium I confined myself to India proper, where consumption is almost entirely of opium eaten in that form. the present paper I shall deal first with opium-smoking in India proper, and thon with the opium problem in Burmah, where smoking is the prevalent method of consumption.

2. As regards India proper, the considerations adduced in my previous paper, which have caused the Government of India to regard a certain amount of opium-eating as legitimate in present circumstances, do not apply to the smoking habit, which has never taken root in the country, and is strongly condemned by public opinion. The Indian Government have therefore endeavoured for a good many years past to reduce it to a minimum by repressive action. Thus, while some twenty years ago there were 600 shops for the sale of smoking preparations, the sale of such preparations was subsequently, and remains still, absolutely prohibited.

*

"Vigorous measures," to quote from the recent despatch of the Indian Government of which I made use in my previous paper, are enforced by the police and the excise preventive service for punishing infractions of the law, such as are occasionally attempted in large and cosmopolitan centres like Calcutta and Rangoon.

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manufacture of smoking preparations, again, is only allowed by the smoker himself or on his behalf from opium lawfully in his possession, and only to the extent of 1 cola ( oz.) at a time. The quantity of opium daily used by an opium- smoker is so large in comparison with that required by an opium-eater, and the inconvenience and difficulty involved in the repeated preparation of opium for smoking are so great, that these restrictions hardly fall short of legal prohibition. We have now, in consultation with Provincial Goveruments, carefully examined the question whether direct and unqualified prohibition of opium-smoking is possible, and whether measures can be devised in this direction which offer a real prospect of success. the result we have come to the conclusion that the time is ripe for suppressing all public gatherings for the purpose of smoking opium, whether they are called saloons, clubs, or social assemblies, or by any other name whatever, and for prohibiting all manufacture of opium-smoking preparations save by an individual of a small quantity for his own private consumption. In other words, opium-smoking dens in every form are to be made illegal, and the Governments of provinces which have legislative councils are being instructed to introduce legislation with that object. For areas without legislative councils of their own similar legislation will be introduced in the Imperial Council."

Hitherto, I may explain, the assemblage of persons for opium-smoking has not been illegal so long as the total quantity of opium used does not exceed the aggregate of 1 tola apiece, which cach of the participauts is entitled to possess, subject in some provinces to a maximum of 5 tolus, even though the collective number of smokers be more than five. Now any such public gathering will be per se illegal.

3. "We have also decided," the Government of India go on to say, "that the maximum limit of private possession of opium-smoking preparations shall be reduced to a quantity to be determined for each province by its own Government with regard to local circumstances. The provincial authorities are fully in favour of this step; and the maximum which they suggest goes as low as 90 grains, and in some cases even 45 grains. The quantity at present allowed is already low, being 1 tola or 180 grains in all the Indian provincos except Madras, where it has just been reduced to 90 grains. It may safely be said that under Indian conditions a tola represents little more than one or two days' average dose for a smoker of low-grade chandu (smoking-stuff). It is a good deal short of the daily dose required by a habitual and confirmed smoker. Wher this is further reduced in the manner indicated above, the measure will have the practical effect of prohibition.

"We have arrived at these conclusions, after full deliberation, in preference to an attempt at the categorical prohibition of the smoking of opium by individuals. To declare the act in itself illegal would, we are convinced, have been impracticable, impolitic, and even dangerous. It would have been necessary for us, in the first instance, to ascertain and register all persons habituated to smoking, as China has endea oured to do. This we believe would present serious difficulty unless we were to register opium-eaters as well-au impossibility under present conditions in India. But there are more imperative objections to the declaring of private opium-smoking an offence. If wade effective, it would only lead to the increased use of other, and probably more deleterious, drugs. But to make it effective would mean domiciliary It would visits and the closest supervision over persons suspected of the practice. open the door to blackmail, espionage, and an amount of interference with the inner domestic life of the people which would be absolutely intolerable. As it is, the importance of dissociating the police from the fresh odium of opium detective work has constrained us to decide that the working of the new restrictive legislation shall be entrusted to excise officials rather than to the police. Nor do we believe that absolute prohibition would carry us appreciably further than the measures which we have decided to adopt. Opin-smoking is à social habit, and we cut at the root of it by prohibiting assemblages for the purpose of smoking, Moreover, we make prevention more effective, from the point of view of legal proof, than if we attempted to deal with the private and secret practices of individuals. It is easy to prove the fact of a certain number of individuals being found together; and if, as is proposed, the presence of opin-smoking pipes or other apparatus with or without opiwn-smoking preparations will be held to raise the presumption that the assembly intended to sinoke opium, there will be no difficulty in euforcing the law. Solitary smokers find the private manufacture of smoking preparations so wasteful, tedious, and expensive, and, with the reduced limit of possession, they will have to resort to it so often that noue but the most hardened individuals, who are in any case past hope, will consider it worth while to continue the habit."

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