China and the West

Dewey, John. Our share in drugging China [ID D28473].
Of the millions who associate opium and China probably only few know, beyond a vague impression of England's part in an 'Opium War', that from the very beginning, the responsibility for the introduction and spread of the use of narcotics lies with foreign nations. Few know how repeated and consistent have been the struggles of responsible Chinese authorities to prevent the importation of the drug, nor the obstacles that officials of other nations have thrown in their way. Even when poppy growing became general throughout the Empire (and there is no denying that it did), fairness compels the acknowledgment that the Chinese had reached the conclusion that since it was impossible to prevent the introduction of opium from India, they might as well have a share in the profits themselves. In 1906 began the last great campaign against the growing of poppies and for the total eradication of the drug habit, cooperation of Great Britain regarding the importation of opium from India being secured. Even the foreigners who are most pessimistic regarding the capacity of the Chinese to carry through any general reform make an exception of the anti-opium fight. The vigor with which it was conducted was equalled by the ingenuity and skill with which offenders were detected and dealt with. What was accomplished in five years speaks wonders for the capacity of Chinese administration when it is in earnest, and for the adaptability of the Chinese people. There are few instances in history where such a sweeping reform was carried through so rapidly and thoroughly.
Belatedly and under the pressure of criticism and in opposition to the protest of business against 'sentimentalism', other countries agreed to cooperate with China. They forbade the exportation of opium save under strict regulations to secure legitimacy of use. China enforced as well as made these restrictions. Since 1905 only about forty ounces a year have passed through the Chinese customs. This amount is taken accordingly as the standard of proper medical use by physicians, hospitals and chemists. It is hard, however, for law and morals to keep up with the advance of science and business. The above figure cannot be taken to measure the state of the drug-using habit in China.
As the importation and use of opium decreased, science provided substitutes in the way of derivatives, especially morphia, heroin and codein, while cocaine was added from a new source. And the use of these forms of 'dope' is spreading so fast that they are likely to outdo the ravages of opium at its worst. Opium-smoking is expensive. It is an indulgence now confined to the wealthy. The use of the syringe is as cheap as that of the pipe is dear. Injections can be had for three coppers a 'shot' and the profit to the dealer at that rate is over a thousand per cent. Opium-smoking was an aristocratic vice; the needle reaches the coolies. It was not difficult to discover the opium-users. The dweller in any large city of the United States does not need to be told how difficult it is to detect the seller of forms of modem dope. Ingenuity when profits are at stake is not less in China than in America. On every hand one hears of the tricks employed in smuggling and distributing morphia and heroin. The sale is made easier because the Chinese are great takers of medicines, and the licensed practitioner in our sense hardly exists. Opium derivates are sold in all kinds of pills, and itinerant pedlars introduce pills and injections without the ignorant victim knowing what he is getting until after the habit is well fixed. And the weight of evidence is that the effects of morphia, cocaine and heroin are more completely demoralizing to the body, mind and character of the average dope user than were those of opium-smoking. Add the comparative minuteness of the dose for injections,—a single case of detected smuggling in Shanghai lately yielded enough for over twelve million 'shots'—and it is easy to see that the new menace is worse than the old. Since, however, the drugs now reach China only by the medium of smugglers, it might be thought that there is no longer national responsibility for forcing this evil on China—that it is now simply a matter of the individual wickedness of the smuggler and dealer. Unfortunately for the good repute of the western nations, such is not the case. Putting it mildly, carelessness and neglect in drawing and enforcing regulations regarding manufacture, transportation and exportation of opium products are such as to make the nations accomplices in guilt. In 1912 an international convention forbade the further exportation of morphia into China. Before this time the exportation from Great Britain into Japan was 30,000 ounces a year. This was a large enough amount in all conscience, and the most of it undoubtedly found its way to China. By 1917 it had jumped twenty-fold—to 600,000 ounces. Over fifty tons got from Scotland to Japan in four years, these figures being official custom statistics. It does not have to be pointed out that both the British and the Japanese governments knew that this amount was infinitely above legitimate needs—or that its destination was China, to which country exportation was nominally prohibited. But division of moral responsibility was at work. The British were far from the retail trade and the ultimate consumer. Their profits were in Indian revenue where the opium was raised, in Edinburgh the manufacturing centre, and in the shipping trade. The Japanese did not have (at that time) the responsibility for producing and exporting; they merely served as intermediaries. It is easy in such circumstances to pass on blame, and difficult to make an effective appeal to conscience. Only international cooperation would work. The Hague passed excellent resolutions—and Great Britain, the offender at the source, declared that she would put them into force when every other nation did.
In 1917, however, the appeal to the conscience of the British government was sufficiently strong, so that regulations were put into effect by which opium derivatives could be shipped into Japan and its leased territory in Manchuria (the latter being one of the chief centres whence morphia reached the Chinese) only when licenses were given to the exporter. And these licenses were to be given only after receipt of a certificate from Japanese officials that the morphia was for medical use only, and was destined for consumption in Japan itself or its leased territory. The latter proviso made Japan an underwriter that the goods should not reach China. The next year there was a great falling off. Still in view of the fact that Japan was by this time manufacturing more than enough to supply its own medical needs, it is disconcerting to find that one hundred and fifty thousand ounces were imported into Japan. The fact argues an easy conscience somewhere. But this statement does not cover the ground.
In the first place, Great Britain exacts no such license for exportation by means of parcel post—and a single postal package can easily carry stuff for a hundred thousand injections. British subjects in China accuse their home government of wilful omission and evasion. In the next place, the British authorities in both Hong Kong and Singapore farm out the opium product business, receiving in each place two millions of revenue annually for the concession. Now there are well established facts proving that the concessionaire can make his business pay only by getting contraband into China proper. It is obvious that no one would pay two millions a year for the privilege of making opium to be sold only in the city of Hong Kong. So many facilities are given to the concessionaire for smuggling into China that there are those who say that the British licensing regulations for the Japanese trade were adopted not for moral reasons but to protect the 'opium farmers' who were having difficulty in meeting Japanese competition in contraband and who appealed to the British government for protection in their rights.
So much for Great Britain's share. As to Japan. Leaving out of the question the neglect of the government in Japan in issuing licenses, and the charges that advantage was taken of the lessened British trade to encourage poppy growing in Japan and Korea, there is the fact that for Japanese territory on Chinese soil, namely in the leased territory of “Dairen and vicinity” and in Tsingtao, licenses are issued by minor officials and irresponsible officials. In a single year there were imported 'for medical use only' in 'Dairen and vicinity' sixty-six thousand ounces of morphia. The figures are conclusive that the Japanese administration was an accomplice to making its Manchurian territory a point of departure for sending contraband into China. In general Japanese control of the retail and distributing trade has of late years become so complete that they have gradually come to be regarded as the chief if not the only sinners. One cause of present anti- Japanese feeling is found in the fact that Shantung has now become a centre for distributing dope.
Now enters the American participation in the crime of poisoning China. The British require no license for exportation to the United States. Our laws are such that when the stuff arrives at one of our ports it is only necessary to put the goods into bond for transhipment to avoid payment of duty. And while the morphia could not be directly exported under our own laws into China, our laws regarding transhipment make no inquiry into the nature of the goods. They need only be described in a general way. All the morphia now manufactured in Scotland could readily pass through the United States into Japan thence to reach China illicitly if labelled 'pharmaceutical products'. Remember they could not go direct to Japan from Great Britain. If this is allowed to continue after the attention of our custom officials and of Congress has been called to it, we share with Great Britain and Japan the burden of sinning against China.
But not all our guilt is indirect. The morphia seized in the recent smuggling case in Shanghai was all manufactured in Philadelphia—a fact verified in open court by a lawyer of the International Anti-Opium Association. It would be a criminal offense to ship this direct to China. But there is no law against shipment to Japan. American traffic through the two channels of British goods in bond and our own products has reached vast proportions already. The official statistics show that for the first five months of the current year, twenty-five thousand ounces of morphia reached the port of Kobe from American ports. But the Japan Chronicle, published in Kobe, is responsible for the statement that the manifestos of ships arriving in Kobe during the same period show about ninety thousand more ounces not appearing in the custom house returns. The conclusion is certain. This amount was transhipped in Kobe harbor to be smuggled into China. That this shows gross connivance on the part of Kobe port officials may be argued. But the primary responsibility is with the laws and administration of the United States. We have become a large partner in the contemptible business of drugging China at the time when China is making heroic efforts to emancipate herself from the narcotic evil.
Our holier than thou attitude towards Great Britain and Japan must be abandoned. We have as yet no vested industrial and commercial interest possessing great political influence. It requires only a slight amount of interest in the evils of the traffic and a slight amount of energy to frame laws and administrative regulations that will compel adequate registration of all opium products reaching American ports, and make it a criminal offense to transport such goods for re-export. We can easily take steps that will make it impossible for morphia and heroin of American production to be exported to Japan thence to reach China. We can see to it that our post-office at Shanghai cannot be employed for sending narcotics into China by parcel-post (as we do not do at the present, thus making ourselves criminal accomplices in the breaking of Chinese laws and the poisoning of the Chinese people).
The International Anti-Opium Society has worked out plans which if adopted would effectually control the whole nefarious traffic not only for China but for the world. These plans start from the fact that control from the side of retail distribution and the ultimate consumer are so difficult as to be almost hopeless. But control at the source is simple. The growth of poppies can be put under supervision, and every grain of raw opium that leaves them be accounted for and traced. It is possible to determine the amount of narcotics that is required for legitimate medical use. The manufacture of this necessary amount should be put under government licensing and constant inspection. Then by serial numbering of uniform packages and records of sale all distribution could be traced. No opium products are to be shipped anywhere to the Far East except upon receipt of a requisition from the importing country certifying to the intended use, and upon prior notification to that country of the nature and date of the shipment meeting the order.
Our own interest is not a purely altruistic one, nor is it confined to doing our obvious duty by China. We have the drug evil with us, and its growth in our country is one of the most disconcerting of present events. We cannot insure ourselves against this evil till we take the measures that will guarantee China against it. The laws and regulations for the control of importation, transhipment, exportation, manufacture and wholesale merchandizing that are needed to protect China from our partnership in the crime of undermining her life are the exact means of safeguarding our own health and morals. Until we have cleaned our own house we cannot take the part that we should take in urging upon other nations, especially Great Britain and Japan, effective international action. The Paris Conference promised China that the League of Nations would take up the opium and morphia traffic. Shall the United States continue its partnership in crime until forced by outside action to abandon it? Shall it enter the deliberations of the League of Nations Assembly with unclean hands?