Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 531

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Shaukiwan and Yaumati, about eighteen places in which about one thousand persons receive injections twice a day. There are a few, who no longer use it, who claim to have been completely cured of their opium-smoking habits by it; but others have tried it and afterwards gone back to opium-smoking.

A coolie who would smoke 5 or 6 cents' worth of opium a day only pays 1 cent for each injection, so that he saves 3 or 4 cents a day and obtains an equal effect, while at the same time he is getting cured of the opium smoking.

The Morphia used is purchased at the dispensaries as a powder at $40 a tb., by one or two men, who dissolve it in water and sell the solution to the injectors. These inject the liquid under the skin, at the muscles of the arms, with small hypodermic syringes, which are also purchased at the dispensaries. The operator begins on a patient with a big dose, which he decreases daily, or once in two days, for about a month, when the cure should be effected.

Few of those making the injections are even Chinese medical practitioners and none of them have had training under foreigners. The unrestricted use of such a drug by reckless and unqualified practitioners must be a great danger to the community and, like the unrestricted sale, seems to call for the imposition of some restriction as a safeguard. Whether Morphia in the shape of a powder comes under the Ordinance as a preparation of opium may be a question for the law officers to decide, or if the Opium Farmer wishes, he could take up a case as a

test case.

W. STANTON,

W. QUINCEY,

Inspectors.

(Minute by the Captain Superintendent of Police.)

Honourable COLONIAL TREASURER,

Report in accordance with your request.

F. H. M.

19.6.