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Penalties for offences Any person who manufactures opium without the permission of the local governor, or secretly sells manufactured opium, or sells, transfers, owns, or possesses opium other than that sold by the Government, imports opium, or exports it without permission, is liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine not exceeding a thousand yen and the opium in respect to which the offence is committed is confiscated. Persons who infringe other provisions are, according to the degree of their offence, liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine not exceeding five hundred yen.
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CONTROL OF MORPHINE AND COCAINE AND SALTS THEREOF IN JAPAN PROPER.
A greater portion of the medicines used in Japan was supplied before the European War by importation from Europe and America, and especially from Germany; but the war made it difficult to import medicines, and as the articles in store in the country ran short, the prices rose and threatened to become injurious to national hygiene, and moreover, as the growing scarcity of medi- cines abroad raised their prices even higher than in this country, they began to be re-exported to foreign countries. Accordingly, by Home Department Ordinance No. 18 issued in August, 1914, their exportation generally was restricted, and subsequently from considerations of the relations of demand and supply in this country, the ordinance was amended on eight different occasions, and those articles, the production of which in this country was estimated to be plentiful, were gradually released from this restric- tion upon exportation; but morphine, cocaine, and heroin which might be put to evil uses were not released from this restriction to the last. Attention has since been given chiefly to the control of exportation to China and Kuangtung Province; the exportation of these medicines requires the permission of the Minister for Home Affairs, permission is only given for those intended for use in medical treatment, and also, to prevent secret exportation, by consultation with the authorities of the Finance and Com- munications Departments and by instruction to local governors, the condition of business of those engaged in export and import trade is inspected and efforts are being made in concert with the Japanese authorities in China to make sure that there are no infringements of the regulations. It is, however, deeply to be
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