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Opium to Heroin: Restrictive Opium Legislation and the Rise of Heroin Consumption in Hong Kong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Harold Traver
Harold Traver
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong
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Extract

Given our current preoccupation with conducting a war on drugs, we run the danger of forgetting that, once upon a time, the sale of opium was widely condoned and, in some Asian societies under colonial rule, even monopolized by the state. While this clearly encouraged the widespread use of opium in these societies, some have claimed that it at least served to keep more dangerous and addictive drugs at bay. Within Asia there is no question that the postwar era has seen a dramatic shift away from opium to other addictive drugs, in particular heroin, and that this has coincided with the introduction of anti-opium laws. Are we then justified in concluding that the success of the anti-opium movement in prohibiting opium has served to encourage the spread of heroin?

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 307 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1992

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References

Notes

1. This a common theme that runs throughout most accounts of the switch from opium to heroin in the Far East. This position is most clearly articulated in Westermeyer, Joseph, “The Pro-heroin Effects of Anti-Opium Laws in Asia,” Archives of General Psychiatry 33 (1976): 1135–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Similar conclusions regarding the effects of anti-opium laws can also he found in Alfred McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Leonard P. Adams II, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York, 1972)Google ScholarPubMed; and Fort, Joel, “Giver of Delight on Liberator of Sin: Drug Use and ‘Addiction’ in Asia,” Bulletin of Narcotics 17 (1965): 1–11.Google Scholar

2. There are a number of accounts of the nineteenth-century trade in opium, including Scott, J. M., The White Poppy: A History of Opium (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Fields, Albert and Tararin, Peter, “Opium in China,” British Journal of Addiction 64 (1970): 371–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spence, Jonathan, “Opium Smoking in Ching China,” in Wakeman, F. and Grant, C., eds., Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975), 143–73Google Scholar, Turner, F. S., British Opium Policy and Its Results to India and China (London, 1876)Google Scholar; Stelle, Charles Clarkson, The Americans and the Opium Trade in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1981)Google Scholar; Owen, David Edward, British Opium Policy in China and India (Hamden, Conn., 1968)Google Scholar; Eames, James Bromley, The English in China (London, 1974; reprint of 1909 edition)Google Scholar; and Greenberg, Michael, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–1842 (Cambridge, 1951; reprinted 1969).Google Scholar

3. Endacott, George, A History of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1958), 3–75.Google Scholar

4. Eitel, Ernest J., “An Outline History of the Opium Farm of Hong Kong,” The Friend of China (March 1875): 27–40Google Scholar. See also Miners, Norman, Hong Kong Under Imperial Rule, 1912–1941 (Hong Kong, 1987), 207–77Google Scholar. The retail sale of opium was limited to quantities of less than one “chest.” A chest was a commonly used measure in the opium trade in the nineteenth century and weighted approximately 160 pounds (72 kilograms).

5. Besides establishing a monopoly system in which the right to sell opium would go to the highest bidder, Ordinance 21 of 1844 also controlled the right to sell salt, hemp-based narcotics, betel nut, and betel leaf in Hong Kong. In regard to opium, the ordinance was not a success. As it was originally written, fines were imposed for the unauthorized sale of opium for consumption in Hong Kong. This left offenders the convenient defense that any opium in their possession was for consumption outside of Hong Kong. Ordinance 5 of 1845 closed this loophole. With the exception of two periods (1847–57 and 1883–85) when the government introduced a system of direct licensing, the farming system remained in effect until 1914.

6. Cheung, Lucy T. P., The Opium Monopoly in Hong Kong 1844–1887 (Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, M.Phil. Dissertation, 1986), 12–13Google Scholar. Cheung's discussion of the opium monopoly provides one of the few detailed examinations of the opium farmer's social and economic position in Hong Kong society.

7. Colonial Records Office (CO), “Further Instructions to Sir H. Pottinger on Affairs in Hong Kong,” Governor's Dispatches and Replies from the Secretaries of State for the Colonies, Series 129, Vol. 3, 9 January 1843, 73–77.

8. Ibid., No. 29, 1844, 303.

9. House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on Commercial Relations with China (London, 1847)Google Scholar. Reprinted in British Parliamentary Papers: China, Vol. 28 (Shannon, Ireland, 1971), 161.Google Scholar

10. Cheung, The Opium Monopoly, 65–85.

11. Representative examples of the anti-opium literature during this period include Thelwall, A. S., The Iniquities of the Opium Trade with China (London, 1839)Google Scholar; and Broomhall, B., Britain's Sin and Folly (London, 1905).Google Scholar

12. The Hong Kong government claimed a loss of revenue of $225,860 in 1910 as a result of these changes in the law and projected losses of more than $270,000 for the years 1911 and 1912. The British government made the Colony a grant of $9,000 for the year 1910 to help replace the revenue lost on opium. In addition, in September 1909, the Hong Kong government took steps to impose duties on liquor as a means of offsetting the loss. An Imports and Exports Office was established to collect the duties. By the close of 1909 a sum of $101,884 had been realized from the new liquor duties, and by 1913 this figure had increased to $979,050 or 11.5 percent of total government revenues. See Woodhead, H. G. W. and Bell, H. T. M., The China Year Book (London, 1914), 707Google Scholar. Revenue figures are derived from the Hong Kong Blue Book (Hong Kong: Government Printers) for the relevant years.

13. All dollar prices refer to Hong Kong dollars.

14. Sessional Papers, “Reports on Morphine Injection,” Hong Kong Legislative Council No. 3/1909, 36.

15. Merrill, Frederich, Japan and the Opium Menace (New York, 1942), 21.Google Scholar

16. Foreign Office, “Memorandum Respecting the Opium Problem in the Far East,” The Foreign Office Collection—FO415, Part xxvi, No. 6, 1929, 11–43. A facsimile reproduction of the whole of FO415 has been published in six volumes as The Opium Trade (Wilmington, Del., 1974). Despite these efforts, some European countries continued to take a relatively tolerant stance toward the international drug trade. As late as 1927–28 a Dutch company managed to ship half the world's supply of heroin (3,000 kilograms) to the Far East without countervening any Dutch law. Most of this shipment was presumed to have ended up in Japanese hands (FO415, Part xxvi, No. 6, 1929, 30).

17. Foreign Office, “Japan and the Morphia Trade,” FO415, Part xvi, No. 32, 1921, 40.

18. Foreign Office, “Morphine and Humbug,” FO415, Part xv, No. 6, 1921, 86–87.

19. South Manchuria Railway, Fourth Report on Progress in Manchuria to 1934 (Dairen: The South Manchuria Railway, June 1934).

20. Foreign Office, “Drug Situation in Manchukuo: Report on the Drug Situation in the Mukden District,” FO415, Part xxxi, No. 6, 1939, 19.

21. “Manchurian Opium and Heroin Monopoly Expands in North China,” The China Weekly (8 February 1936), 328. Author(s) not given. See also Merrill, Japan and the Opium Menace, 101.

22. Merrill, Japan and the Opium Menace, 78.

23. Ibid., 101. This information came from a statement by S. J. Fuller, U.S. Representative to the 23d Session of the League of Nations Opium Advisory Committee, 13 June 1938.

24- Foreign Office, “Drug Traffic in China: Correspondence with the State Department Regarding the Drug Situation in China, FO4/5, Part xxxi, No. 5, 1939, 17–18.

25. China Information Committee, Japanese Actions in Contravention of the Nine Power Pact Since the Mukden Incident (Hankow, [1938]), 36Google Scholar. Author(s) not given.

26. Foreign Office, “Drug Traffic in China: Information Collected from his Majesty's Consular Officers Regarding the Drug Situation in Japanese-occupied Parts of China,” FO415, Part xxxi, No. 4, 1938, 9–10.

27. One of the finest accounts of Japanese involvement in the drug trade in Asia is Keiichi Eguchi, The Sino-Japanese Opium War (in Japanese) (Tokyo, 1988)Google Scholar. Eguchi based his conclusions on official government documents recently discovered in Japan. Merrill (note 15 above) also provides a useful account using materials from the League of Nations. A short discussion also appears in International Anti-Opium Association, The War Against Opium (Tientsin, 1922).Google Scholar

28. Sessional Papers, “Reports on Morphine Injection,” Hong Kong Legislative Council, No. 30/1893, 525.

29. Sessional Papers, “Reports on Morphine Injection: In continuation of No. 30 of 1893,” Hong Kong Legislative Council, No. 31/1893.

30. Sessional Papers, No. 30/1893, 521.

31. Sessional Papers, No. 31/1893, 527.

32. Sessional Papers, No. 30/1893, 523.

33. Sessional Papers, No. 3/1909, 30.

34. Ibid., 37.

36. Dangerous Drugs Report, Report of the Government of Hong Kong for the Calendar Year of 1932 on the Traffic in Opium and Dangerous Drugs (Hong Kong, 1932), 5Google Scholar. For more information on heroin pills, see “The Mysterious Heroin Pill for Smoking,” Bulletin of Narcotics 5 (April-June 1953): 49–54.Google Scholar

37. Prepared Opium Report, Report of the Hong Kong Government for the Calendar Year of 1936 on the Traffic in Prepared Opium (Hong Kong, 1936), 8.Google Scholar

38. Prepared Opium Report, 1938, 4–5.

39. Ibid., 1939, 5–6. Between 1938 and 1939 the number of offenders imprisoned “for heroin offenses” increased from 1,132 to 2,114. In comparison, the number of people imprisoned for opium offenses only increased from 2,364 to 2,903.

40. Merrill, Japan and the Opium Menace, 69.

41. Sessional Papers, No. 3/1909, 39.

42. Sessional Papers, “Report of the Committee Appointed by H.E. The Governor to consider the Colony's Position with regard to the obligations incurred under the International Opium Convention, 1912,” Hong Kong Legislative Council, No. 7/1924, 59.

43. Addiction figures are reported in Merrill, Japan and the Opium Menace, 69. The proportion of the population alleged to be addicted was computed in the following way: The adult male population for 1938 is extrapolated from the 1931 census, which placed the total population of Hong Kong at 849,751 and its adult male population at 363,371 or 42.8 percent of the total population. In 1938 Medical Department estimates placed the population of Hong Kong at 1,478,619. Assuming that the proportion of adult males in 1931 remained constant in the intervening years, this would make a 1938 adult male population of 632,265.

44. Prepared Opium Report, 1939, 6. See also Merrill, Japan and the Opium Menace, 70.

45. Miners, Norman, “The Hong Kong Government Opium Monopoly,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 11 (1983): 295–96.Google Scholar

46. Commerce and Industry Department, Annual Report (Hong Kong, 1948/49), 5.

47. Hong Kong Police, Annual Report (Hong Kong, 1952/53), 37.

48. Ibid., 1953/54,36.

49. Fort, 1965; E. L. Way, “Control and Treatment of Drug Addiction in Hong Kong,” in D. M. Miller and G. G. Kassebaum, eds., Narcotics (New York, 1965), 274–89.

50. M. P. Lau and P. M. Yap, An Epidemiological Study of Narcotics Addiction in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1967).

51. Westermeyer (note 1 above) was reporting on a study that appeared in Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts, Annual Report, 1971–72 (Hong Kong, 1972).

52. Unless otherwise noted, all figures relating to opium and heroin offenses are derived from police crime statistics appearing in the Annual Reports of the Hong Kong Police.

53. Hong Kong Government, Annual Report, 1990 (Hong Kong, 1989), 419.

54. Narcotics Division, Central Registry of Drug Abuse, 23d Annual Report (Hong Kong, 1988).