TRADE IN DRUGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21244, 27 January 1931, Page 9

TRADE IN DRUGS

LARGE WORLD SURPLUS. RECORD OF SEIZURES. LONDON, January 15. Twelve tons of morphine in excess of the world’s legitimate requirements were manufactured in 1929, says the Opium Board of the League of Nations. That very little of this huge surplus goes into reserve for medicinal purposes is apparent from the concurrent increase in the seizures of illicit cocaine. It is true that more vigilance is exerted in some countries, owing largely to the efforts made by the special department of the League to arouse certain laggard countries to a sense of their duty to the rest of the world. But it is evident, in the opinion of the League’s special officers, that the quantities of drugs seized, being an increase of 60 per cent, over the average of the previous four years, show that the problem has not yet been really grappled with. The countries in which the largest seizures were effected were the United States, Egypt, Greece, and India. The League’s Opium Board considers it is quite possible to estimate the world’s legitimate requirements and to limit the production of dangerous narcotic drugs to the figure arrived at.