OPIUM IN INDIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19838, 7 January 1928, Page 8

OPIUM IN INDIA.

The announcement that the Government of India has appointed a commission to consider stopping the cultivation of the opium poppy in the Native States marks another step in the process of grappling with this major social problem of all India. In 1926 the gradual abolition of the opium export trade fipm British India was decided upoa/by the central Government. The problem of domestic consumption was, not affected by this move. It is peculiarly difficult. Opium smoking has never been countenanced, but the other method of consumption, "opium eating,"—admittedly not so pernicious as smoking—has been in vogue from time immemorial. An official report rendered some years ago said: "Opium is in virtually universal use throughout India as the commonest and most treasured of. the household remedies accessible to the people." Efforts at least to regulate its consumption have been in contemplation for some time. For any system to be effective, control over the production in the Native States would be essential. As long as the poppy is grown there, a danger of smuggling opium into British India for domestic use and for export must exist. About the middle of j last year, a conference was held between the Government of India and 33 of the States concerned. It was then arranged that there should be a detailed inquiry into the whole subject. Here may be found the origin of the commission just appointed. If it recommends effective means of controlling the situation, and if the recent undertaking by Persia to cease growing the poppy, so far as possible, is carried out, an effective check may be given the production of narcotics, to the benefit of both India and a much wider area in which the illicit drug traffic flourishes.