Use of opium and traffic therein : Message from the President of the United States, transmitting the report of the committee appointed by the Philippine Commission to investigate the use of opium and the traffic therein, and the rules, ordinances, and laws regulating such use and traffic in Japan, Formosa, Shanghai, Hongkong, Saigon, Singapore, Burma, Java, and the Philippine Islands, and inclosing a letter from the Secretary of War.

  • United States. Philippine Commission (1899-1900). Opium Investigation Committee.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Use of opium and traffic therein : Message from the President of the United States, transmitting the report of the committee appointed by the Philippine Commission to investigate the use of opium and the traffic therein, and the rules, ordinances, and laws regulating such use and traffic in Japan, Formosa, Shanghai, Hongkong, Saigon, Singapore, Burma, Java, and the Philippine Islands, and inclosing a letter from the Secretary of War. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/298 (page 22)
    At tii-st the committee was inclined to be somewhat sceptical of the efficiency of the law so fai' as it touches the Chinese, especially as these are settled chiefly in the coast towns, where their well-known in^^enuity in smuo-glino- and the ease with which the commodity can be conveyed secretly into the coufitry afl'ord facilities for evasion. But apparently the vigilance of the police is such that even when opium is successfully smuggled in it can not be smoked without detection. The pungent fumes of cooked opium are unmistakable and betray the user almost inevitably. In the judgment of the committee—it could secure no information to the contrary—the Chinese residents in Japan are for the most part nonsmokers. Occasionally a culprit is discovered and visited with severe punishment, but w'hen we consider that the last Chinese conviction was three jmars ago and that during that period we have no record of a Japanese having been brought into the court tor oflenses against the opium law it is safe to conclude that we aie in the presence of efl'ective legislation. Even in Formosa, where the Japa- nese are surrounded by an opium-smoking population, no tendency has been observed among them to yield to the evil influence about There is an instance on record where a couple of Japanese lads m iSoith Formosa experimented with opium just for a lark, and though they were guilty only on this occasion they were detected, arres’ted, and punished. Mr. Ando (see Appendix C), who was in Hawaii for three and one-half years, considered the Japanese practically against the vice. An instance was brought to our attention of a Chinese com_ pradore who, because he was unable to secure opium in Kobe, resigned his lucrative and responsible position and returned to China. Uui experience leads us to consider that legislation which minimizes oflenses is entirely satisfactory. It is seldom our good fortune to meet m ith a law that practically shuts the door completely against transgression, but such is the case with the opium law of Japan. It would be eas} to jump to conclusions and to commit the folly of generalizing fi’om a single instance, but in order to estimate the intrinsic ^ J- chapter of Japanese legislation it is necessary to make a caietul stu y of the national conditions which prevail. • „ ra.ir (1) In the first place the Japanese to a man tear opium the cobra or the rattlesnake, and they despise fls victims Jheie has been no moment in the nation’s history when the ® in their uncompromising attitude toward the drug ^ i s so an instinctive hatred of it possesses them. China s emse ^eeji Japan’s warning, and a warning heeded, (bee Appendix C.) ^ Smoni to th”e’ reality of the“evil effecte of opium can be ound than the hoiTOr with which China’s next-door ,(Jed days of the Tokugawa dynasty, when tlie gates ot •'•‘P'' j to the world, there was small opportunity tor good ll'/“Cvere letTv^ rd toiltgu products Bowed in with a rush the spear point to r'tear'ordie“etl o? ^lium there is tl>at powerful the seductions of opium.