BY ROY. K. ANDERSON, F.R.S.A. Superintendent, Burma Excise Department ILLUSTRATED CALCUTTA and SIMLA THACKER, SPINK & CO. 1922 PRINTED BY THACKER, SPINK & CO. CALCUTTA...

At a time when the drug-evil, as it is called, is attracting so much attention all over the world, it does not seem out of place to tell the public something about how conditions in regard to it obtain in India and Burma. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is no literature on this subject outside “blue books,” and those admirable compilations are notoriously dry reading. A novel called “ Dope ” by Sax Rohmer professes to deal with the drug-evil and the traffic in drugs in the West; bu

Everybody is a smuggler at heart! Our innate free-trade instincts and love of liberty revolt against what we look upon as uncalled for interference with our rights when we are called upon to declare and pay duty on a box of cigars or a bottle of whisky when we disembark at a Customs port; and we look upon evasions of these obligations, not as evidences of moral obliquity, but as a very proper exercise of the exemption which we claim as our right. On the whole, this point of view is to be sympath

No matter how powerful and reckless of consequences a smuggler may be, there is, nevertheless, a lurking respect in his bosom for the myrmidons of the Law. It is to his interest to have the authorities on his side, and, as he cannot have them on other terms, he must pay them handsomely. An excise or police officer, especially if he be of the lower ranks, can make it uncommonly uncomfortable for a smuggler; and it may be taken for granted that a smuggler is not completely satisfied until he has a

Of all those who threaten the smuggler with arrest and loss, the informer is the one he fears most, and accordingly regards with bitter hatred as his greatest foe. Without information, the hands of the executive are tied; without informers, they would be wholly ineffective; and except for a chance seizure now and then, there would be little for them to do. As things are, the organization of a detective department is so linked up with informers and information that one finds it difficult to conce

As an inducement to seize contraband, Government pays its preventive staff money-rewards which bear a ratio to the value of the stuff seized, and the ability displayed in seizing it; and an officer who is active and conscientious very often can earn in this way from three to four times the amount of his monthly salary. But the seizing of contraband is by no means easy, as the smuggler has brought concealment to a fine art, and there seems to be no end to the ingenuity which may be exercised by h

Bloody encounters with smugglers are rare, but they do happen sometimes, and as it is always on the cards that active opposition may be encountered when a party sets off to intercept a smuggler on his way to “market,” the work of an exciseman is not entirely free from danger. Very often when a smuggler goes on a journey, he travels armed with sword or spear; sometimes with a musket; sometimes even with a modern revolver or shot-gun. He is prepared to use these, and unless the intercepting party

Taken all round, I think it must be admitted that the smuggler is a sportsman, in the sense that he plays a hazardous game at great personal risk, at the risk of his fortune, and against great odds. It is true that he takes all the care he can to minimize risks, but he can never hope entirely to eliminate the element of danger; and if his game be divested of all its peccancy, and most of its immorality, we discover in it the essentials of what goes to make horse-racing so popular a “sport” all o

It may be taken for granted that most people are in some degree acquainted with the use of opium, having had it at some time or other administered to them as a medicine. Dover’s powder, so useful a remedy for a cold, contains opium; Laudanum is a preparation of it which is familiar to everybody; and there are scores of other remedies and proprietary preparations which contain opium to a greater or less extent. But useful as opium may be, it must be used with discretion, and must not be allowed t

There are two modes of taking opium. It is either eaten in its crude form, or it is clarified with water and smoked in a pipe of peculiar construction. It is generally conceded that opium smoking is less injurious than opium eating, bulk for bulk, of the amount consumed, and that the intemperate or immoderate opium smoker is less liable to the toxic effects of opium than the man who eats it raw. Why this is will be clear when it is explained that as a result of the process of preparation for smo

It is now proper that we should ask the question “Is opium the very dreadful thing it is made out to be?” My answer is, yes and no. Anything immoderately indulged in is bad for one. Over-eating, excess in smoking and drinking, are all bad. There is such a thing as too much of even a good thing. I am prepared to admit that excess in opium is worse than most things; but as a choice between opium and drink, I consider drunkenness to be the greater evil. It may be that it is more common, and therefo

Morphia, which is the active principle of opium, is interesting in its being the first “alkaloid” to be discovered. Its basic nature was first noticed by Serturner in 1816. As a medicine, principally as an anodyne, morphia is to pharmacy what chloroform is to surgery, and, as a “boon and blessing” to man in that character, it is second to none. But like all good things in this world, it has become the object of the grossest abuse at the hand of man; and its devotees, in an euphonic sense, number

In writing about cocaine, we find that interest lies not so much in itself as in the plant of which it is the alkaloid, the “ erythroxylon coca .” The coca plant is indigenous to Peru, and from the most ancient times, Peruvian Indians have chewed the leaves as a habit, as Indians in this country chew the betel leaf and tobacco. “The local consumption of coca is immense,” says Dr. Hartwig, “as the Peruvian Indian reckons its habitual use among the prime necessaries of life, and is never seen with

Like the poppy which is cultivated for opium, the hemp plant, cannabis sativa , is grown for ganja , bhang , and churrus , all highly intoxicating drugs; and for its bast fibre which makes such excellent rope. The history of the plant is interesting, but no more than a very brief allusion to it is necessary here. The first mention of hemp occurs in Chinese literature, about the twenty-eighth century, B.C., when the hemp-seed is mentioned as one of the five or nine kinds of grain. It is mentioned

Three men, one under the effects of alcohol, one under the effects of opium, and the last under the effects of hemp, arrived one night at the closed gates of a city. “Let us break down the gates,” said the alcohol drinker in a fury of rage, “I can do it with my sword!” “Nay,” said the opium eater, “We can rest here outside in comfort till the morning, when the gates will be opened, and we may enter.” “Why all this foolish talk?” whined the one under the effects of hemp. “Let us creep in through

It is doubtful whether there is a more valuable drug in the Materia Medica than opium. Fundamentally, it is the dried juice of the Papaver Somniferum or white poppy, and although all varieties of poppy are capable of producing opium, the best comes from the white, and it is this variety that is systematically cultivated for the world’s supply of opium. Opium has been the cause of at least one war, namely, the war between England and China, and a perusal of the accounts of piracy in the eastern s