Opium (29 page)

In 1906, Bishop Charles Henry Brent, a member of the Commission, wrote to President Roosevelt suggesting the time was ripe to call for international action to fight opium traffic and to help China eradicate the drug. Roosevelt agreed but not just on humanitarian grounds: it gave him a chance to strengthen Sino-American relations which had suffered by a ban in 1887 on the importation of opium into the US by any subject of the Emperor of China, thus monopolising the opium trade for American dealers.

In February 1909, the first international congress was convened into opium and its alkaloids. Known as the International Opium Commission, it met in Shanghai, ironically deferring its first meeting by a month out of respect to the recently deceased (and addicted) Dowager Empress. Thirteen countries attended, most of them with territorial possessions or substantial Far Eastern commercial interests. From the start, there were problems. Turkey, the major producer after India, refused to send a delegation whilst Persia merely appointed a local merchant to represent its interests. The Commission was also toothless. It could not draft a convention and no one was bound to any definite policy. Resolutions were debated but only as recommendations which did not have to be ratified by governments.

Despite its impotence, the Shanghai meeting was seminal in finally acknowledging a world problem and, by its fifth resolution, publicly promulgating the danger of addiction. The wording stated that:

… the International Opium Commission finds that the unrestricted manufacture, sale and use of morphine cause a grave danger, and that the morphine habit shows signs of spreading; the International Opium Commission therefore desires to urge strongly on all Governments that it is highly important that drastic measures should be taken by each Government in its own territories and possessions to control the manufacture, sale and distribution of this drug, and also such other derivatives of opium as may appear on scientific inquiry to be liable to similar abuse and productive of like ill effects.

Yet they were just words and it was plain, if lasting reforms were to be brought about, delegates to future conferences had to be given powers.

Hamilton Wright, an American delegate to Shanghai, persuaded the US Secretary of State of the Commission's need for political leverage and he, in turn, contacted the participating nations. Their response was lukewarm; vested interests were reluctant to impose international controls.

After considerable political procrastination, a conference was called at The Hague on 1 December 1911 with twelve nations attending: Turkey remained absent and the Austro-Hungarian delegation, present at Shanghai, chose to withdraw. Those who did attend were cautious and protective of their interests: the statement of a principle was one thing but the curtailment of a profitable multi-national industry was another. The Germans protected their vast pharmaceutical industry, the Portuguese defended their Macanese opium businesses, the Persians minded their thriving poppy cultivation, the Dutch guarded their narcotic trade in the East Indies and the British were still apprehensive for the Indian economy. Nevertheless, the conference was a watershed for delegates were empowered to formulate a convention to place before their respective governments which, after ratification, allowed international legislation to be discussed. By January 1912, the meeting resulted in an agreement providing for the control of opium production and the prohibition of its non-medical use.

It looked better in print than it was: it certainly addressed the subject of international traffic, and the signatory nations agreed to control manufacture and distribution of medicinal opium, morphine and heroin (amongst other drugs) and to confine consumption, but it did not define the term ‘control' and there were many more ambiguities in the Convention than there were pledges for action. As before, the various governments were loathe to risk losing tax revenues although they conceded there was an international narcotics problem. Where the convention was of use was in providing a blueprint for future legislation as well as in chemically defining both opiates and cocaine, thus stymieing many smugglers who had used loopholes in existing national laws to get away with trafficking substances by claiming they were mere derivative or substitute compounds.

Getting governments to agree to the Convention was one thing: getting them to approve it was another. Although it was mutually accepted the Convention would not come into force until the end of December 1914, and interim meetings in 1913 and 1914 were convened to chivvy matters along, only eleven countries ratified it. Three days after the last meeting ended, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, the Great War intervened in the situation, control measures went by the board and drug production and use rapidly escalated to cope with military demand. Meanwhile, in the Far East, opium smoking continued unaffected.

With the cessation of hostilities, the opportunity to draw all nations together against a future war was seen as a chance to bring them together in drug control. Measures concerning opium were contained in the Treaty of Versailles and, in 1921, the League of Nations set up an Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs which co-ordinated international drugs information and recorded instances of smuggling. This quickly showed an alarming trend: international drug smuggling was rampant and increasing fast.

In November 1924, two conferences were called a fortnight apart. Known collectively as the International Opium Conference, they were held in Geneva, the first dealing with opium in the Far East and China, the second with opium manufacture. To the former only six governments, with colonial administrations in South-east Asia, and China attended. It was a fraught meeting. The Chinese were still peeved at the presence of foreign traders on her shores providing a cover for drug smugglers whilst the other nations accused China of exporting opium. By the end of the discussion sessions it was agreed to abolish all concessionary opium dealerships with governments taking control of opium through a system of licensing and prohibiting re-exportation. Sadly, this provision only referred to opium: smugglers could continue to run morphine and other opiates with virtual impunity.

Thirty-six governments were represented at the second conference. The USSR stayed away, piously stating it had already put its house in order. The meetings soon degenerated into farce. Universal agreement was impossible. User nations felt defenceless unless the producers halted production, thus robbing smugglers and traders of supply. The producers refused to ruin the livelihoods of their farmers. India claimed it needed opium for home consumption whilst Persia declared it was impossible to find an alternative cash crop. Only China as producer – rather than user – was prepared to consider a reduction but would not act alone. When it was clear no one would face the reality that the only way to address the problem was to cut production, the Americans walked out, followed by the Chinese.

Not all was lost, though. The first international control rules on opium and its alkaloids were instigated and it was agreed to maintain a statistical database of global opium production, the needs of the pharmaceutical industries and routes of traffic and to trade with an official body called the Central Board constituted to police the regulations.

In 1929, the League of Nations sponsored another abortive conference but, two years later, at the Geneva Conference on the Limitation of the Manufacture of Narcotic Drugs, fifty-seven nations assented to a Convention which established a rigorous drug classification system, including provision for new derivatives, forbade the exportation of heroin without the consent of the importing nation and declared a positive need to drive against illegal trading.

Every producer nation was obliged to publish annual estimates for drug demand and a quota system was organised. A supervisory body was established to monitor international drug movements and, where countries refused to comply, it assessed their trade in order to find out where illicit supplies originated. The Convention, which aroused one of the most important tools in the fight against drug smuggling – public opinion – was deemed ‘a bold conception without precedent in the history of international relations and international law.'

Gradually, international treaties were taking effect and governments which did not want to be condemned by the international community were being forced to restrict their opiate trade. Despite the seemingly confused situation, and the apparent ineffectuality of the many treaties, the world's opium supply actually fell steadily, from 42,000 tons in 1906 to 8,000 tons in 1934.

In 1936, the Conference for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs was called to deal with criminal aspects of drug smuggling. Detection methods were discussed, along with a code of punishment for narcotics offences. It was essentially a waste of time: mere prohibition was ineffectual. Towards the end of the decade, the League of Nations Advisory Committee started looking into the limitation of production but developments were tentative.

In summary, by 1939, there existed a substantial corpus of international legislation controlling opium and its derivatives, but basically the laws were often loosely drawn up, the main obstacle to getting them passed being the reluctance of countries with vested interests: resolutions were frequently watered down to the point of ineffectuality in order to be acceptable to all parties. In many instances only the Americans, who had been the initial driving force from the turn of the century, mooted for really robust laws. Producing-nations protected their revenues – just as the British had over a century before – and their farmers for whom poppy growing was an essential livelihood. Almost every nation gained from taxing drugs coming into their country or colonial possessions whilst others made substantial profits from opium derivative manufacture which they would not restrict.

Governmental opium control in the Far East for example, as suggested by the first 1924 conference, meant a lucrative opportunity for raising tax revenue by the licensing of opium retailers and the official control of opium stocks. All the colonial powers in Asia, although overtly trying to cut down on opium smoking by reducing the number of retail outlets, earned magnificently from opium taxation. An indication of this may be gleaned from official accounts: in 1918, opium accounted for 46 per cent of the revenue of the Unfederated Malay States and in 1923 for 48 per cent of the total in the Straits Settlements. In 1920, with the ‘farm' system still running, the following story appeared in the
Shanghai Gazette:

Macao, May 21. The bidding was very keen to-day for the opium monopoly for the three years commencing August 1st, the first offer being $2,500,000 [Mexican silver dollars] annually. Spirited competition brought the price up to $3,950,000 and the farm was adjudicated to the Lee Sing Company, Hong Kong.

Three years later, the
China Year Book,
a gazetteer for merchants, remarked:

The revenue of the colony [of Macau] is mainly derived from gambling and opium … There is unquestionably strong feeling in South China regarding the possession by the Portuguese of a colony which derives the bulk of its revenue from sources which have been proclaimed illegal within the territories of the Chinese Republic.

Some observers blamed the colonial powers, and Britain in particular, for dragging their feet. One, Ellen La Motte, in
The Ethics of Opium
published in 1924, condemned colonial nations for their attitudes. She astutely remarked, ‘If opium is produced for the Orient, the overflow of that output must necessarily filter back into Europe and America.' She could not have foreseen the prophecy in her words.

The complexities of applying the new laws in opium dependent countries are illustrated by the problems India faced. The government there insisted opium eating was a legitimate use akin to that of the medicinal, arguing eaten opium was non-addictive, was a legitimate stimulant in lieu of alcohol and not detrimental to public health. An Indian Government publication brought out in 1923 and entitled
The Truth about Indian Opium
stated:

The prohibition of opium-eating in India we regard as impossible … Opium is in virtually universal use throughout India as the commonest and most treasured of the household remedies accessible to the people … The vast bulk of the Indian population, it must be remembered, are strangers to the ministrations of qualified doctors or druggists. They are dependent almost entirely on the herbal simples of the country … To prevent the sale of opium except under regular medical prescription would be sheer inhumanity.

It also argued opium was essential to the country because of its extensive veterinary use in cattle and because elephants also ate large doses although the reason for this is unclear for a drugged elephant can hardly be an adequate beast of labour.

The non-detrimental argument was not universally believed and statistics gathered by anti-opium groups suggested possibly up to 85 per cent of the opium sold fed addiction. As in Britain, infants were calmed with it.
Bala goli
was a common opium sweet given to children, the bitterness of the drug disguised by sugar or spice whilst wet nurses and mothers with querulent babies often smeared opium on their nipples.

Opposition to opium did not just rest with religious or social organisations. Mahatma Gandhi ran a campaign against opium in Assam in 1921 and instituted a 250,000-signature petition with Ramanamdra Chatterjee and the poet Rabindranath Tagore which was presented to the first of the 1924 international conferences. At the same time, sympathisers on the All-India Congress Committee condemned the opium policies, Gandhi remarking: ‘It will be no defence to urge that the vice has existed in India from time immemorial. No-one organised the vice, as the present government has, for the purposes of revenue.'

For a while, running as a strand through the conferences, an argument simmered as to which was more harmful, opium eating or smoking. In the past many had held the opinion eating to be the less deleterious but the argument arose that it had to be more harmful than merely inhaling fumes, some of which would not reach the mouth from the pipe but drift into the air. The government of India, which produced mostly eating opium, was of the former opinion which it maintained to the 1930s. Their argument, however, was succinctly put down at the 1924 conference by one delegate standing up and declaring to a pro-eating speaker: ‘Very well, I have two cigars. I propose to demoralise myself by smoking one of them, while you eat the other.'