The All-Nations’ Traffic in “Dope.”

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 224, 9 June 1923, Page 13

The All-Nations’ Traffic in “Dope.”

Survey of a World Problem. The following article was written for the American OUTLOOK by Elizabeth/Washburne Wright, American aSviser to the Opium Council of the League of Nations. It is written, of course, from ! the American standpoint. '

IT IS REPORTED that the United States has decided to send an observer to be present at the next meeting of the Opium Advisory Committee of the League of Nations. This is a very significant step, and shows that America is at last awake to the seriousness of the drug menace which is spreading over the world. Since the closing of the Third International Opium Conference at The Hague in 1914 this Government has but indirectly concerned itself in a movement for which it was so directly responsible. This has resulted in the leadership gradually slipping from us, and while we have hesitated as how best to resume its direction the movement has been diverted into channels foreign to the original intentions of this Government.

It is true that the domestic aspect of the drug question has not been ignored, the last addition to our series of laws being the Jones-Miller Bl . This is an amendment to a law already in force, and, while it strengthens that law, it brings us little nearer to the real source of the trouble.

The opium question is not at base a domestic but an international question, and if it is to be solved it must be approached from this Tangle. Obviously no domestic legislation passed by the United States can restrict the over-production of opium in Persia, in 'Turkey, in India, and on a smaller scale in Serbia. Nor can it reach out and restrain a like overciiltivation of cocaine in Peru and Bolivia. We have at hand, however, an admirable instrument prepared for this precise purpose. This is, of course, the Opium Convention of 1912, drawn up at the Second International Opium Conference, held at The Hague, under America’s direct guidance. While the American Government was actively interested in the movement admirable results were achieved. The entrance of America upon the I'ar Eastern stage was undoubtedly a factor in the bringing to an end of the century-old Indo-Cbina opium trade. China’s extraordinary success m eradicating the poppy from her soil was a reaction to this same influence. It is exactly this moral and compelling, force which the movement now lacks, and which must be restored if America as well as the rest of e world is to be protected from an ever-increasing danger. ROOSEVELT’S ACTION. President Roosevelt recognised that the opium question was an international question, and in 1908 called an international commission composed of nations most directly interested in the trade and production of opium to meet in Shanghai to devise some means by which this troublesome problem could be' solved. Three International Conferences held at The tiague followed this meeting, during which period the movement advanced, y leaps and bounds. By 1914 every nation in the world but two—Turkey and Serbia—had either signed or ratified the Convention and the elimination of one of the world’s greatest evils seemed at hand. Thj> war, however, intervened, and opium reform, with other constructive movements, was not only halted but gradually threatened with disintegration. Selfish nations and interests, including our own, took advantage of the existing chaos and tried to counteract the splendid efforts made by China to rid herself of opium by surreptitiously and under cover of the war substituting morphine. At the termination of the war the Versailles Conference took up _the question anew, and under that Treaty the execution of the Opium Convention was placed in the hands of the League of Nations, where it rests to-day. A humanitarian question such as that of opium—practically free of politics—has afforded the League an ideal opportunity of demonstrating its effectiveness. But oven this instrument is being threatened by the very interests the movement has so long combated.' America has been invited to send a direct representative to sit on the Opium Committee of the League, for it ia obvious that international co-operation can alone meet

the intricacies of this problem. If this Government, however cannot make use of the machinery already functioning in Geneva, it should lose no time in providing a substitute. There has been much comment in the American press as to tne responsibility of India in the present drug situation.! It is affirmed tha India is responsible for the flooding of Europe and America with. drugs, and that this is due to her huge over-production of opium. As a matter of tact India’s part in the menace of drugs is but indirect. America imports practically no Indian opium, nor does Europe to any appreciable extent. The medicinal opium of the world is produced in Turkey and Persia, to a much less extent in Serbia. .In 1919 America imported from Turkey alone 640,000 pounds. From India in the same year and according to the same official reports we imported no omium at all. The reason is simple. Indian opium is deficient in its morphine content. It is used primarily for two purposes—for smoking opium and for the very poor quality taken y natives of India. During thb war, when the demand for drugs was so acute, it was worth the extra cost involved ho manufacture Indian opium into morphine.' There is still an attempt being made in India to manufacture morphine, but it cannot compete with the greatly superior Turkish and Persian drug. The statement, therefore, that India is flooding Europe and America with drugs is untrue. “A SUBTLE ROLE.” The part played by India is infinitely more subtle. To explain this it is necessary to revert to the so-called Ten Year Agreement between India and China, by which India promised to stop the exportation of opium into China on the understanding that China would stop its cultivation within her own borders. India forfeited a revenue of some 10 000,000 dcdlar ® * year by this act, but won the commendation! of the world. Since the war Lid the many complications which have followed it is sad to admit that the Ten Year Agreement lias been observed on the part of India alone. N e less to say, the Government bitterly resents the fact that she should have abandoned a large revenue for the purpose of allowing China to substitute Chinese for Indian opium. In her present state of exasperation India fa l to see that this lapse on China’s part is not due to any change of opium sentiment, but to the fact that thp present Government is unable to enforce its laws and the unpatriotic military leaders are forcing the recrudescence of the poppy in order to pay their followers. Under these circumstances, it is perhaps not strange that the Indian Government regrets its earlier sacrifice, and is prepared to stretch the letter of the Opium Convention to its ultimate limit, if by doing so it can restore some portion of its former revenue. At all events, India is making a" prodigious effort to justify her cultivation of the poppy, and in a recent Government report openly states “that there, is no race on earth which does not use some stimulant, and it seems that opium is particularly suited to the Eastern temperament, . . . that in many cases opium shou d no -be regarded as a luxury but as a necessity of life.” This refers to the indiscriminate opium habit of the Indian natives, which, while upheld by the Government, is repudiated by the better mind of the intelligent Indians themselves.

This is obviously a point which cannot be decided by outside interference. But the Indian Government goj?s still further, and now. reverts to a report made thirty years ago by a royal commission sent to India to study the opium question. This has never been referred to by accepted medical authorities except in most deprecatory terms. Lord Morley, at that time a member of the House of Commons, stated that he did not “wish to speak in disparagement of the commission, but somehow or other its findings had failed to satisfy public opinion in Great Britain and to

ease the conscience of those who had taken up the matter What was the value of medical views as to whether opium was a good thing or no we had the evidence of nations who knew opium at close quarters It is this report upon which the Indian Government now openly ta its stand and insists as well that it should be accepted -by the “ Nations. The obvious attempt of the Indian Government to use the Lgagu is doing harm, not only to the prestige of the League, but to Great Britain. ■ whose public opinion for many years past has loudly condemned the opium trade. INDIA A BAR? This attitude of India is doing much to hinder the of movement. At the meeting of the Council of the League m 1921 Dr. Italington Koo, in presenting the report of the Opium Advisory Committee, added a resolution to the effect that the time had now arrived when the cultivation of the poppy must be restricted to its scientific and medicinal need if serious corilplications, not only in tho East, but in the West, werj to be averted. This resolution struck at the very heart of the matter and was unanimously accepted by the Council. Thg League of Nations was widely commended for its courage and initiative in both America and Great Britain. The India Office, however, was much opposed to this action, and at the convening of the Assembly was instrumental in having the verdict of the Council reversed and the wording of Dr. Koo’s resolution changed so that' the restriction of poppy cultivation should be based, not om its “scientific and medicinal need,” but, according to the Indian representative, on its “legitimate need.” This superficially seems a minor alteration, but an alteration nevertheless which strikes at the very heart of the opium problem. If, as the Indian delegate asserted, the eating of opium by the natives of India is a legitimate practice, it must follow that the cultivation of opium is legitimate. This covers the production of smoking opium as well, which, though banned by the Opiupi Convention, still floods the Far East and finds its way wherever Chinese congregate under European jurisdiction, as well as to the Philippines, where it is a physical impossibility to prevent the smuggling of opium into our endless chains of islands. This is the menace of India and the menace to the principle that the cultivation of the poppy must be restricted to its medicinal need. “Legitimate” is a vague and meaningless term, to be interpreted by any nation according to its own financial and selfish need. It is not the desire of the West to upset the financial equilibrium of the East, hut it is time for the great opium-producing countries to consider seriously a readjustment of their budgets. It is an obsolete and pernicioun theory of taxation that a people should thrive on their own destruction. America can no longer stand aside, but must take her part in tho solution of this ancient and many-angled problem, which, unless intelligjutly directed, must lead to inevitable and world disaster.