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(3.) It is advisable to prohibit the sale of those drugs except to persons authorised to purchase the same by licence or otherwise.
(4.) The Customs shall be empowered to detain imported consignments, except in transit, of the above drugs, until satisfied that the consignee is a licensed manufacturer or dealer, or a person duly authorised to receive the drugs.
(5.) Exportation to foreign countries, whether adhering to the convention or not, and to other portions of the British Empire to be permitted only upon production to the Customs authorities of a certificate from the country of destination that the consignee is authorised to import the drugs either in accordance with the stipulations of the conven- tion or with local laws or regulations which, in the opinion of the Customs authorities, are equally stringent.
44. The chief opposition in respect of action on these lines was to be expected from the German delegation, since Germany has a practical monopoly of cocaine production; and the German delegates, holding that they had a satisfactory system of domestic control, were reluctant to embark of further measures that might, as they put it, simply sacrifice a lucrative German industry for the benefit of outside countries not represented at the conference. They observed, too, that the convention as a whole would have to be ratified by the Reichstag, and that measures in restriction of trade were likely to provoke considerable opposition. They held that foreign countries should look after themselves by tightening their customs and police control, or otherwise.
45. It was essential, we held, to endeavour to carry the German delegates with us, for if Germany were out-voted on any important point, she might very likely decline to accept the convention stipulations, and her example might render adhesion of outside Powers problematic. Accordingly, before we introduced any resolutions on the subject into the full conference, we held private meetings with our German colleagues, endeavouring, as far as possible, to meet their views and answer their arguments, and pointing out in particular the impossibility-having regard to the facilities and lucrative character of the contraband trade-of a country like India or China trusting to internal prohibition alone. It was essential, we urged, that producing countries should also co-operate to make the pernicious contraband traffic which had sprung up as difficult as possible.
46. Our German colleagues met us in a friendly spirit, and we arrived at a substantial agreement on the following lines:---
(1.) The first of the conditions quoted above was accepted; but it was not thought necessary to make any special reference to penalties for action without licence, such penalties being a matter for domestic legislation.
(2.) The second condition was also accepted as regards record of all transactions by licensed persons; but with a stipulation desired by the Germans, that this condition need not be applied to medical prescriptions or to sales by duly licensed pharmacists. It was also held unnecessary to state specifically that the register to be kept should be open to inspection by Government officers, that being a matter for each individual country to determine.
It must of course be borne in mind that the action proposed by the conference could only represent the minimum to which all the participating Powers were ready to agree, and that there is nothing to prevent any individual Power from taking more drastic action on its own account.
(3.) The third condition, as to prohibiting the sale of the drugs save to authorised persons, was accepted.
(4.) In regard to the fourth condition, the Germans were emphatically opposed to anything which would impose specific obligations on their Customs Department, pointing out that the circumstances of their country, with its extended frontiers and enormous railway systems, would render such action oppressive. It was agreed, how- ever, that each Government should take steps, in accordance with its commercial conditions, to prevent the importation of morphine and cocaïne save when consigned to persons authorised to receive the drugs.
(5.) With reference to condition 5, the Germans held, as indicated in our despatch No. 7 of the 10th January, that, apart from the question whether the action substituted would not conflict with the most-favoured-nation clause of commercial treaties, this condition was objectionable, on the ground that the conference contained the repre- sentatives of twelve Powers only, and that it was at present quite unknown how far outside Powers would adhere to its proposals. It would be impossible for such a limited number of Powers to set up as regulators of traffic to the rest of the world, or for a
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country within the convention to claim to judge the character of the internal regulations of one outside it. As we pointed out in the despatch above quoted, the matter was one which would be more appropriately dealt with in connection with the "adhesion articles of the convention, and this point of view was accepted in your despatch No. 17 of the 13th January.
The Germans agreed, however, that the participating Governments should undertake to prohibit the export of morphine and cocaine to the territories of other participating Governments, unless the consignee was licensed to receive the drugs under the laws of the importing country; and that, to give practical effect to this, each receiving country which desired to avail itself of this provision should furnish information to the Govern- ments of exporting countries as to the persons licensed by it.
47. Having obtained agreement on these important points, we introduced a series of resolutions at the seventh, eighth, and ninth conference sessions. These resolutions were prefaced by a speech by Sir Cecil Clementi Smith (seventh session), in which he pointed out that the proposals put were in effect a carrying out of the policy indicated in regard to morphine and other derivatives of opium in No. 5 of the resolutions of the Shanghai Commission. The British Government regarded this matter as so important that they decided not to take part in the conference unless the other Powers also accepted its special urgency. Great Britain had already taken energetic steps to aid China in the gigantic task which she had undertaken in the matter of opium suppression, but such action would be of no avail if it merely led to the use of still more pernicious drugs. It was therefore necessary to adopt the most drastic measures possible in order to stamp out this serious vice, which was doing so much harm to the populations of the Far East, and also, he believed, to the United States.
Sir Cecil's speech was vigorously supported by Dr. Wu Lien-Teh, of the Chinese delegation, who gave a vivid picture of the harm done by morphine and cocaine in China, and later on Sir William Collins (eighth session), emphasised the divergences between the small quantities of opium and morphine required for bona fide medical purposes
and the relatively large amounts produced.
At the ninth session again, Mr. Max Müller, speaking with special reference to the subject of restrictions on exportation, laid stress on the necessity for obtaining inter- national co-operation, and pointed out how desirable it was that there should be a unanimous agreement on this point, with which object the British delegation had been willing to drop certain proposals which had appeared to it to be desirable, but to which it could not expect to secure general assent.
48. The British proposals, with some amendments which were usually of a purely verbal character, were carried unanimously, and they formed the basis of articles 9-18 of the original draft of the convention, as reproduced below ---
CHAPITRE III-Opium médicinal, Morphine, Cocaine, &c. Définitions.-Par "opium médicinal" on entend:
L'opium brut qui a été chauffé à 60 degrés centigrades, en poudre ou granuló, mélangé, s'il est nécessaire, avec des matières neutres et ne contenant pas moins de 10 pour cent de morphine.
Par morphine" on entend:
Le principal alcaloide de l'opium, ayant la formule chimique C, H N O2
Par "cocaïne" on entend:
Le principal alcaloide des feuilles de l'Erythroxylon coca, ayant la formule C1, H2 NO.
Parhéroïne" on entend:
La diacetyl-morphine, ayant la formule C H N O
Par " codeine" on entend:
Un autre alcaloïde de l'opium, la méthyl-morphine, ayant la formule C1s H2 N O..
ARTICLE 9.
Les Puissances contractantes édicteront des lois ou des règlements sur la pharmacie de façon à limiter la fabrication, la vente et l'emploi de la morphine, de la cocaïne et de
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