OPIUM AND MORPHINE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2716, 22 January 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

OPIUM AND MORPHINE.

•m. : 7 CHINA’S CRUSADE AGAINST THE DRUG HABIT. ALL OPIUM DENS CLOSING AND OPIUM TO BE WIPED OUT IN TEN YEARS. .... 0 5

(By Frank G. Carpenter, in the New Orleans “Times Democrat.”)

Suppose that President Taft and,our national Congress should send out an edict to-morrow, that' every man and woman in the employ of the Government must igive up the drinking of liquor or be dismissed from office, and that no new appointment should be made to 'any one who had contracted the liquor habit or who would not sign the pledge. Let this edict relate not only to Washington, but to every post office and custom house, and let its effeet be so extended ns to include every State official, even to the county cleiks, sheriffs, and their subordinate employanother edict provide that __ all must show Government permits before a glass of whisky, wine, or.other liquor will be sold to them, and so that every saloon-keeper be subject to fine and imprisonment if he breaks the law. Let the edict summarily shut nine-tenths of the saloons, and provide for the absolute destruction of all within the course of ten years. Let there be laws forbidding the distilling of liquors and their importation; and, in short, the inauguration of a scheme of Goveinment .restrictions which would entirely wipe out the manufacture, selling, and drinking of anything intoxicating within the soace of ten years. It would be a- good, big contract, would it not? L . . , Well that is mst what China is tryino- to do as to 'blotting opium and the opTum traffic from the face of her country. THE ANTI-OPIUM EDICTS. We have had crusades against (liquor, but they have been mostly begun by the women and carried out with the opposition, rather than the assistance, of the Government officials. This crusade of China begins at the top. Three years ago the great Empress Dowager and the chief boards of the Empire at Pekin sent out ediets cutting down the size of the opium farms, shutting up the opium dens and requiring all dealers in opium to ttks out licenses. The Government commanded all farmers to reduce their opium fields by ten per cent, every year, and provided that no opium at all should be cultivated after the end of ten years. It required that the merchants decrease their opium sales twenty per cent, every year, and close out the whole business in the space of five years. It ordered that all public opium dens should be summarily closed, and that the retail opium shops should gradually be abolished. At the same time it inaugurated dispensaries where free medicines might be had to take away the opium craving, and encouraged the establishment of opium hospitals for those who had contracted the habit. _ In the same edicts it was provided that all risers of opium should .be registered : that they should be examined by the police, and the habitual users should be allowed only a given quantity of the drug, at certain fixed periods. These allowances were to be gra. dually reduced, so that at the end of five years all persons under sixty years of age would be free from the habit. All users of opium were required to wear badges, so that every one would know an opium fiend as he walked the streets. _ ‘ All government officials, princes, du’kes. viceroys, and generals under sixty, had six months to give up tthe habit or to tender their resignations; and all teachers and scholars were required to stop opium smoking within the space of one year. As to the officers of the army and navy, they were commanded to abandon the habit at once. This is what China is trying to do. The above proclamations have been followed by others, and to-day the Prince Regent and the grand council are doing all they can to have these laws 'nut into force. They are prosecuting their infringement, and they have inaugurated such a reign of terror as would create a revolution m the United States and turn our people and governments upside down. OFFICIALS MADE TO STOP SMOKING. It makes one laugh to think what would happen if Uncle Sam should cut off every Congressman’s toddy, should prohibit eold tea in the restaurant of the Senate and not allow the clerks of the government to take a friendly tipple together. That is -what is going on here. I am told that no less than 2500 officials, more or •less prominent, connected with the government service in Pekin either have -broken or are endeavouring to break off the use of opium.. Some of these are habitual smokers, who have tried so hard to quit that they have died in the attenrfpt. Take, for instance. Wen Hai! He was one of the highest scholars of the Empire, and was connected with the grand secretariat. To hold his job he signed a declaration that he was not an opium smoker, and then stopped using the drug. He died a few months ago. Tsai° Chang, another noted official, w&s cashiered for smoking. He is ill in consequence, and. it is said, will not recover. Chi Chang, the acting r Governor of the province of Anhwai, died the other day for the same reason, and there are many other old smokers who are said to be ill. According to the new laws, which are more or less evaded, the smoking of opium means immediate dismissal. Government detective s or censors have been instructed to shadow the officials, and those who claim to have broken off the habit are rigidly watched. Just the other day a private secretary of one of the cabinet 'ministers was found to have several ounces of opium on his person, and a request for his dismissal was promptly sent forth. In one of the papers this morning, I see a despatch stating that Prince Chang, on e of the Imperial opium commissioners, has just denounced twenty high officials who have lied as to their use of the drug, and that he demands their dismissal. Last October two of the Imperial princes were ordered to resign their posts that they might give their entire time to the eradication of their craving for the drug, sand.at the same time, as an -act of mercy, three months of extension was allowed to certain civil and military officials who had not obeyed- the Imperial edicts. The crusade 1 is being extended even to the ladies of the palace. They have been warned that they must stop smoking, and certain of these noble 'dames, who have been secretly selling opium to their. friends ; have been told that -if they continue they will he imprisoned.

AMONG THE VICEROY'S. The work of stopping the evil among the clerks outside Pekin has been delegated to -the Viceroys and Governors. There are twenty-two provinces in China, and the work in each of (these is going on rapidly, or the reverse, according to the energy of the Governor. In Szechwan, a- State in the far west hordering on Tibet, one of the new district officials invited all of Iris subordinates to a dinner. He feasted them, well, hut, as they were about to leave, he closed the door, -saying that, he intended to keep all with him under lock and key for the next three days to learn whether they were free from the opium habit. He knew those who were not would show nervousness, and in this way he could learn liow to enforce the new laws. It is believed that many of the Viceroys are still secretly smoking; and the Anti-Opium Commissioners have asked the Prinoe Regent to call a meeting at the capital of oil the Viceroys, Governors and Generals of the Army who have reported that they have broken off the habit. When they appear they will be subjected to a test to show whether or not they have lied. Since this one Viceroy has asked for time for some of his officials, and others have established opium hospitals and cures.

CLOSING THE DENS

In almost every province of China there has been a general closing of the opium dens. In some cities a backdoor business is still going on, but the public smoking has become unpopular and dangerous, and the chief opium used is now behind closed doors. In Shanghai all the dens in the native town have been shut, and fully half of those in the foreign concessions wiped out. The foreigners propose to clean out the evil in their part of the city by 1910. In Wuchang the shutting up of the (lens has considerably diminished the arrests for crime, and one of the policemen says this is largely because he does not know where to go to look for criminals. In Foochow there were 280 dens at the time the edict was issued. They were all closed on the first of the fourth month of the year following, and are still shut. The same is true of Ichang, although the shops for the sale of opium are still open. Kishing, which for many years was one of the opium-smoking places in the province of Chekiang, has abolished its opium shops, and the day of the closing the opium pipes were burnt in 'public and the people rejoiced. The same is true of many other cities, in not a few of which the opium dealers have since secretly resumed business. A MIGHTY CRUSADE. Outside the officials a mighty crusade, has been going on over China to stop the use of opium among the people. Indeed, there are so many different movements that I hardly know where to begin. Every province has its antiopium societies. These meet regularly: they print and distribute anti-opium literature and send out men to lecture ufpon the opium evil. There is one society in Canton which has distributed millions of pamphlets showing the terrible fate of the opium user. -Pictures of the man before and after he ha's become the slave of the drug are published, and the horrors of the practice are vividly painted. Many of the societies resign the pledge, and many of them offer rewards for the detection of opium smokers and of the illegal selling of opium. In some of the provinces the most rigid laws have been enacted against the users of the drug. In Kiangsu no habitual smoker under fifty can appear in court as a plaintiff. He cannot institute a suit,, and can have no protection from the laws as long as be continues to disobey them. In Canton there is a temple which has been -given over to the anti-opium crusade, antiopium pictures being pasted upon its walls. In Yunnan opium lectures are everywhere given, and a large number of refuges have been created to take, in confirmed smokers and! cure) them. Hundreds of opium pipes and lamps are nailed to the walls of the Government buildings, and the Viceroy is rapidly reducing the area of the opium . farms. At the capital of Eukcin province there have been eight burnings of opium and opium fixtures, during which 1236 ounces were destroyed and the following items burned : —Pipes, 4433; pipe bowls, 4482; lamps, 3693; boxes, 3497; vessels for opium cooking, 500. About 9000 needles used, for mor_ phine injections were all .given up and broken. In that province it j s absolutely necessary to have a certificate to buy opium., and the same person can only get his supply once a month, the allowance (being fixed by the opium commissioners. OPIUM CURES. I find a general belief among the Chinese that the opium habit can be cured. Everywhere pills to take away the craving are sold, and, in most of the great cities, hospitals and refuges have been establised where the slaves of the drug go to break off the habit. In Foochow there are six such hospitals, and four of these report that they have already cured 3259 persons. Such institutions have been established at Pekin, Nanking, Tientsin, Wuchang, Canton and in many other places. Foreign doctors have also come in, and profess to be able to cure the opium habit. One of these who* is well recommended is an American, Mr C. B. Towne. 'He professes to bo able to 6 cure anyone of the opium habit in three days. He established -hospitals in Tientsin and Shanghai. He lias started one at Pao Ting Eu, where it is said that one hundred patients came to him during the first -month and were cured. Then the 1 number of' applications mysteriously decreased, and Mr. Towne found that this came from -a report to the- effect that, although l the cure was successful, it always killed the patient within, one hundred days thereafter. This story was false, but it almost broke up the hospital. ■ Mr. Towne’g institution at Tientsin was established at the expense of the Viceroy, and officials who were cured received a certificate certifying that fact. OPIUM v. MORPHINE. ‘ One of the great dangers in the use of :maiiy of the anti-opium remedies is that they contain the drug in some other form. The Government has had to extend its laws to morphine, and in one of the recent edicts the importation of motpliia and of hypodermic

syringes is prohibited and their sale is limited to practising physicians. The morphine habit has long been prevalent in -many parts of the Chinese Empire, and a vast amount of unorphine pills are still consumed. In certain cities along the Yangtsekiang the hypodermic injecting of morphine is common. They have professional peddlers who go about with hypodermic syringes u|p their sleeves and give injections at the rate of about a penny apiece. Such men are to be found in. the teahouses, and are ready to give one a jab in the arm upon asking. In the past it was customary for the members of a party to stand up in a row and hold out their arms with the sleeves rolled up to their shoulders. The most common place for the injection was about the biceps, but many of the opium fiends were tattooed from their necks to -their wrists, and also on other parts of their bodies. The morphine injectors make their own solutions, and, as they use dirty water, the danger of their communicating diseases is great. The Government is doing all it can to abolish these morphine practises. It has stringent laws carried out an most 1 of the cities. In the meantime, I understand that the English and Germans have been flooding China with cheajp hypodermic syringes since the present crusade began, and that the Chinese Imperial customs hoard has now issued regulations prohibiting their importation, except by the 'foreign /medical practitioners and foreign druggists. Hereafter all morphia and syringes landed without a- special permit from the customs will be confiscated. AS TO RAISING OPIUM. The greater part of the opium used in China is raised at home,. That imported from India amounts to thousands of pounds a year, but a far greater quantity is -grown upon Chinese soil. Poppy plantations are cultivated as far north as Manchuria, and there are -nrovinces in Southern and Western China where opium is one of the principal cr-ops. ■ The reducing of the areas of cultivation is causing a considerable loss to the farmers. The Government realises this, but, nevertheless, it insists that the laws be enforced. According to them, no ground can be planted to poppies, and the old fields must be cut down one-tenth of their original size every year. In some -provinces the viceroys ordered the immediate stoppage of all cultivation of opium, and in others they have remitted the taxes for five or ten years upon opium lands which have been turned over to other crops. In Yunnan the soldiers have been directed to dig up the poppyfields, and the viceroy of Nanking recently issued an order that his farmers must destroy their opium seods, and "thai/ such, as had planted tliem. should dig their fields over and put in something else. All the opium-raising lands have been registered, and the Government at Pekin is keeping a close watch over the amount cultivated. The Prince Regent lias offered medari and rewards to those who hav© changed tlieir crcjps from the poppy to grains, and they are to be freed from national taxes for a fixed period. ~,,,,, In short, there is no doubt about the earnest and active efforts of the officials and of a large -part of the people to do away with the opium habit. Many are resolved that it must be out out of China at any cost, and the Government is willing to submit .to the enormous loss of revenue which it entails, for the good of t-lie people. MILLIONS OF OPIUM SMOKERS. On the other hand, it is a question whether the opium evil is anything like so great as is generally supposed. It has been stated that more than 100,000 000 of the Chinese are opium-users. Some will tell you that the whole race is drugged, and that all the then, women, and children use opium daily. This is true on its face. I doubt whether the opium habit is as prevalent among the -Chinese as the whisky and beer drinking habit is among the English, Germans, or Americans. -In/ the first place, it is costly, and the bulk oi the Chinese are poor.. Again, the amount of opium raised in China is pretty well known, and >we have accurate statistics of all that is imported. Foreigners estimate the total annual consumption at something like 40,000,0001 b. If tliis were divided equally among the people, it would amount to oidy °“ e ounce per year per.head. Now the average confirmed smoker takes about three mace a day or ninety mace in one month. , Ten mace make an ounce, and tnis 'would equal nine ounces a month, or nine pounds a year. Dividing the 40,000 000 by nine gives a quotient or less than 4,500,000, the total number of confirmed smokers required to consume all the opium raised in China. In other words, if one-tenth o» the population were habitual opium-smok-ers they would consume all the opium which China now has. If the estimate is doubled the number would be less than 10,000,000. T , Dr. George Morrison, of the .London “Times,” who ds one of our most careful writers on things Chinese, and who knows the country better than any Chinese I am acquainted with, estimates the possible consumers at less than 8,000,000. WHISKY v. OPIUYI.

In fact, opium is consumed here about as much a s spirituous liquors are in England and the United States. Both habits are a mighty evil, and both cause a vast deal of misery; but to say that every mJan, woman, and child in China is an opium fiend is as false on its face as it would be to allege that every man, woman, and child in England and America is addicted to drunkenness. In closing tliis letter I would say that dt will be a long time beiore the hor>es of the Chinese statesmen and pa,. triots can^ come to fruition. The work of regression is going on rapidly, but opium is still smoked' largely in secret, and an enormous amount of underhand selling and smuggling is done. lliese people aro just as human 'as wo *airc, and the same conditions prevail as would obtain in the United States were we to -try to abolish the drink habit within as short a time as the Chinese have allotted to the* wiping out of this terrible drug. Some of the officials are hypocrites, others are openly disobeying the law, while others, bound m the Laoooon grip of the opium, are secretly smoking the drug or are injecting morphine into their persons behind tlie closed doors. .' The ‘ movement for the most -part is earnest , and honest, and it has already accomplished a- vast deal or good. _