FIRST DRAFT.
HONG KONG DIRECTIVE.
138
Opium.
In view of the statement of policy made by His Majesty's Government on 10th November, 1943, announcing the total prohibition
of opium smoking in British and British protected territories it
will be necessary at an early date to repeal the consolidating Opium Ordinance (No. 7 of 1932) and subsequent amendments and simultaneously to take the requisite legislative steps to bring raw and prepared opium within the scope of the Dangerous Drugs
Ordinance (No. 31 of 1932).
2. Thereafter it will be the duty of the Police Force, and of any special preventive staff which it may be necessary to employ, to take steps to deal with opium-smoking on the same lines as were adopted in the years preceding 1941 to eradicate certain
other habit-forming drugs, in particular heroin.
3. The question of offering rewards for information about opium, without which inducement the police are not likely to be able to effect very much, will be complicated by the fact that the protection of revenue (i.e. the Government Opium Monopoly) will no longer be a factor, and funds for this purpose will have to be provided as they were for the anti-heroin campaign, which It will be desirable to similarly was of no financial benefit. start a popular movement against opium-smoking, based on an appeal against national degradation, and this should be backed by encouragement among the Chinese youths of the Colony of outdoor sport of all descriptions such as had become such a feature of
local life in the years shortly before 1941.
4 It will probably be necessary to arrange in due course with the Canton authorities for the treatment and restitution of opium addicts on a payment basis (for genuine residents) similar to that
employed in the case of lepers and lunatics.
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