TNAG-0415-FCO40-461-Review-of-narcotics-problem-in-Hong-Kong-1973 — Page 108

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in a shorter and more general way, that might assist in the understanding of this very serious problem by a wider readership in the Diplomatic Service. The good name of the British administration is very much at stake.

2.

The cession of Hong Kong in 1841 was extracted from the Chinese primarily to promote the British opium trade with China. Throughout the remainder of the last century this trade continued to be a major factor of life in Hong Kong, whose Chinese inhabitants accepted opium smoking as a traditional social habit. Total prohibition of the opium trade and opium smoking was not effected in the Colony until 1946.

3. Against this historical background it is ironical, if not surprising, that Hong Kong should now be confronted with one of the world's worst problems of drug addiction, illicit drug trafficking and manufacturing. Our estimate is that the Colony now has not less than 60,000 drug addicts, and probably considerably more, out of a population of four million - proportionally one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world. Its geographical position astride the main communications routes in the area has made it almost inevitable that Hong Kong should also have become a centre of the illicit trade in narcotics. We estimate that some 50 tons of raw opium and 10 tons of its derivative morphine base are imported illegally into Hong Kong every

year.

The Colony is a major producer of heroin from imported opium, which is exported clandestinely to, amongst other places, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia. The turn-over of the business of opium and its derivative in Hong Kong is estimated to amount to about HK$1 million a day.

4. The appointment in August 1972 of a Commissioner for Narcotics in Hong Kong gave formal evidence of the determination of the Hong Kong Government to improve the effectiveness and co-ordination of measures to counter this serious situation; details of these measures will form the subject of a further despatch. In this present despatch I wish to call attention to some of the international factors which complicate, and to a large extent nullify, our efforts in this direction.

5. For the fact is that the eradication of drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking in Hong Kong lies largely outside our control. We shall do what we can, but an effective solution can only be found with the co-operation of other countries in this area. Historically, in the last century, the opium imported into China and Hong Kong was grown in India. There is no evidence that India is now a source of opium for the illicit international drug traffic so far as Hong Kong is concerned. The raw opium and its derivatives imported into Hong Kong since the second World War has its origin in the so-called 'golden triangle' at the conjunction of Burma, Thailand and Laos. The

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