ILLICIT TRAFFIC IN DRUGS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 48, 27 January 1932, Page 8

ILLICIT TRAFFIC IN DRUGS.

(By Arthur Davies.)

The recent case -at Basle in Switzerland in which a number of illicit drug traffickers were tried and convicted has drawn attention once again to the world-wide ramifications of this iniquitous trade and the increasingly successful , efforts which are being made by the police of all nations through the League of Nations to stamp it out. That particular case began in. the discovery of packets of heroin disguised as “glue” by the Egyptian Customs officers. After months of secret, difficult and dangerous investigations by the Egyptian police and agents of .the League of Nations Central osium Board the particular band of conspirators who were responsible in this case —or at. least some of them —were successfully brought to justice. On December 8, Mr M. B. Perrin, of the Home Office, delivered a most interesting address-to the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain upon the: general subject of this illicit traffic. Greatest attention has been concentrated during the last few years on Egypt because the drug habit has been growing there very rapidly of late and under the very able and energetic direction .of a retired British general, now known as Russell Pasha, who is in charge of the Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau there, the facts have been very clearly brought before the League Opium Committee. Other countries which have suffered considerably are China and India, in the East and the U.S.A. and the South American Republics in the West. Canada has also had to contend against illicit traffickers. Marseilles seems to be the chief centre of the trade at present, but the actual routes followed are continually shifting. Turkey has during the last two or three years added to the difficulties of the situation by allowing uncontrolled factories to be established at Constantinople, but here again, thanks to the glare of publicity given by the League’s work the Turkish authorities are being shamed into falling into line with the rest of the world in the matter of control. The dangerous drugs regulations in this country have worked on the whole very effectively in preventing any growth of the habit or the trade, and Mr Perrin believes that similar rules of law in other manufacturing countries would rapidly reduce the international trade to manageable proportions. The Home Offioe is in daily touch with the authorities in other countries, and through the League of Nations an international eye is being kept upon the activities of known and suspected traffickers in every part of the world. Already, although the needed co-operation is not always forthcoming and in spite of the immense difficulties of detection and exposure, very considerable progress has been'made towards stamping out this insidious evil. In Mr Perrin’s own closing words: “The conscience of the nations has been awakened, the manufacture of morphine, heroin, and cocaine in Western Europe has been very considerably reduced,. and the way of the trafficker is being made increasingly hard.” „ ■