THE DRUG TRAFFIC.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3147, 11 December 1922, Page 2

THE DRUG TRAFFIC.

The ruined lives and tragic deaths of the Freda Kemptons l and Billie Carltons have provided ai text for Press sermons for many months past (stated a writer recently in the Westminster Gazette). But there is serious .ground, for believing that the recent anti-eo-caine agitation in- Great Britain is l to a large extent used as a cloak to cover the fact that our manufacture of morphine is phenomenally large, and that neither the export of this drug nor its legitimate medical use is sufficiently large to account for the extent of the manufacture.

This was the view expressed to delegates to a conference of the League of Nations Union at Geneva' by Dame Rachel - Crowdy, head of the Social Section of the League and secretary to the League's Opium Advisory Committee. The three countries of the world most concerned with, the manufacture of morphinel are the United State® of America. Great Britain, and Switzerland. Fn regard to. the manufacture of cocaine Genoa and Holland are the worst offenders.

The Opium Advisory Committee; at Geneva considered the answers received to a. questionnaire .sent out a year ago on the production and manufacture ol dangerous 1 drugs. The work of the committee is, of course, hampered by tbe fact that these drugs have their legitimate medical and scientific uses, and must therefore he controlled and not suppressed. The League’s questionnaire (according to Dame Rachel Crowdy; produced 1 very interesting results. As an example (if the discrepancies shown by tine answers to the questionnaire, Dame Rachel mentioned that the reply from Japan showed that she had imported from England in 1920 between 10,0001b and 11,0001b of morphine, while the English reply showed that (die had exported l to Japan in the same year only 11b of morphine. Japan again declared that she had imported from Switzerland 4,9631b, hut Switzerland had no export figures whatever to produce.

Another curious l fact which seems to call for attention is that the Swiss consumption of morphia is said to he 2/0 kilns, though her import is 3,200 kilos. In Macao, according to the Portuguese delegate to the Opium Committee, the consumption of opium is fifteen grains a head. Whereupon the Indian delegate not unnaturally asked why 800 grains per head were manufactured. All these discrepancies have been referred by the League’s Committee hack to the Governments concerned for explanation. Two facts emphasised by Dame Rachel promise hope for the future. China has promised to conduct a Committee of Inquiry with a representative of the International Anti-Opium Association taking part, and putting in a separate report to the League. The United States, which is not a member .of the League, ami therefore has taken no part np to now in the League's anti-drug campaign, has now sent’ a renly to the League's questionnaire The Hague Government has promised to provide an annual report, and most important of all, to adopt the importation certificate suggested by the League. In this matter international action is beyond question the only remedy. “The whole world was against me,” wrote Freda. Kompton in her pathetic, farewell letter to her mother, and it is unite evident that only by linking the whole world together against the traffickers in human lives can their unhappy victims ho saved. The cooperation of so important a non-mem-ber of the League of Nations as the United States is therefore of supreme importance.

The plan of the Opium Advisory Comni'tteo of the League is, briefly, that all Governments should agree that no export of opinni or other dangerous drugs should take place unless both the exporting and importing traders obtain a certificate from their Governments showing on the one hand 'that the drug was needed for legitimate consumption, on the other that tire drug was exported with the consent of the Government concerned. If this practice were made universal the horrors of the drug traffic would speedily he lessened.

Other decisions urged by the committee include the rendering of an annual report by each Government on the cultivation, production, manufacture, regulation of imports, control of special drugs, etc.; a statement by Governments of their requirement for international consumption; an arrangement whereby Governments should exchange information concerning seizure made by Customs and police; and finally, that Governments should give facilities for the carrying out in their territories of investigations by commissions appointed, partly by the League and partly by tlk-\Government concerned. All the systems will go before the Assembly of the League .which meets next month. A further idea on which the opinion of the Assembly will ho asked is that a (Hack List of manufacturers should he kept and circulated periodically to the various Governments, who should-he asked not to trade with firms on this list.

When all is said and done, however, it, is evident that only the pressure of a norganised world public opinion can stamp ont this international evil. Laws will achieve nothing unless the people, themselves are determined to keep the standard of national legislation up to the level of resolutions passed at international conferences. In this connection it is important to note that the League of Nations Societies in this and other countries are alive to the danger and that the League of Red Cross Societies has requested every national Bed Cross Society to undertake as part of its programme educational propaganda. against the drug traffic.