Mr. May said that so loneg as opium smoking is permitted in the Far East there
is a possibility of troops acquiring addiction and of drugs being smuggled from
countries in the Far East to countries in the West.
Mr. Anslinger said that the United States has had much opium smuggling from Hong Kong and that
Colonel Sharman has had more experience in that connection than has the United States. He
suggested that Colonel Sharman tell his story.
Colonel Sharman said that Canada had opened a Legation at Chungking a year ago
and that he had informed Dr. Victor Hoo that he was in
favor of suppressing opium smoking
wherever found. He said that whereas 15 years ago Canada had handled 150 cases of
opium smoking a year, Canada had only two cases in the past five years; that it
has been almost completely stamped out as a matter of domestic policy; that the Canadians
put the problem before the British in no uncertain terms as regards the
smuggling of smoking opium from Hong Kong to Vancouver; and that there was a lot of
trouble ten years
ago with the Canadian Pacific Railway concerning their ships in the Pacific until several fines of $40 000
each were imposed on the owners by the United States on account of seizures of drugs. Then they got
interested and began to place special agents on board their ships. People had been found traveling
on these ships
who were neither sailors nor passengers but racketeers. One got killed and another
was thrown overboard, while a member of the police barely escaped with his life after he was poisoned.
Each of those vessels had up to six hundred Chinese
as crew members. They would buy all the opium they wanted at Hong Kong which was
under the British flag, from a Government vendor and take it out on the Empress ships. They would smoke some of
it on the way over. It cost the Canadian Pacific Railway $20,000 a year for trained detectives to control
the situation on the ships. A can of opium used to cost $32 at Hong. Kong or Singapore and would sell
for $50 to $100 at Vancouver. When found in illegal possession of smoking opium the
offenders are sent to jail under the same flag as the one under which they obtained the opium. To a certain extent the
Blue Funnel Line was also a carrier. Colonel Sharman said further that it was difficult for the Canadians
to have that sort of thing going on under the British flag and he pointed out that the cost of suppressing
this illicit traffic was greater to the public than the value
of the drugs needed by Canada for legal purposes. He also said that the more successful
the Canadian Government
was in suppressing the illicit traffic, the higher prices went and the more the
racketeers were encouraged to attempt smuggling. A can of smoking opium at Vancouver now sells for
$950
the highest
price in the world. Colonel Sharman stated that
at Geneva the Canadians have tried to
do their best to suppress opium production to the limits of medicinal needs.
Colonel Sharman said he was trying to be as dispassionate as possible. He said that Mr. Nind, the Indian
delegate to the Opium Advisory Committee at Geneva is a friend of his, that for weeks they served together
on the special limitation committee, and that Nind said
he was not free to discuss the limitation of opium in the Indian States; that he admitted that
there were 6,000 shops selling opium in those States.
Colonel Sharman queried "How can you suppress opium if you have 6,000 shops in India?" He
said
that although India does not export opium to China anymore, it does export smoking opium to Zanzibar on
the ground that there are Indians there. He asked why shipments should be allowed to Zanzibar. If
it is admitted he said, that it can be shipped to any place where there are Indians,
it could be shipped also to Canada. Colonel Sharman stated that personally he is in favor of any
plan
which involves the disappearance of opium in excess of medical needs.
Mr. May said that he supposed :the Chinese would request that opium smoking in the
Far East be banned and that he presumed also that the countries which have monopolies
there have considered what they are going to do about it and have considered
also whether to make
a
gesture in advance of a demand on the part of the Chinese Government to suppress smoking opium and thus add to their prestige in the Far East.
Mr. Anslinger suggested that it would be some thing like the relinquishment of
extraterritoriality. Professor Chamberlain said that Dr. Victor Hoo lays more stress on the
suppression of smoking opium than on the relinquishment of extraterritoriality. He
is
now
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs at Chungking. Professor Chamberlain. added that Dr.
Hoo said before he left Washington that this was one of the most important things he
was going to take up with his Government.
Mr. Anslinger said that the attitude of the Netherlands Government in the past has been that
it could not suppress smoking opium while the illicit:
traffic existed. Mr. de Voogd said that the attitude of his Government has been
that since opium could come illicitly to the Netherlands Indies the best
way to handle the situation was to keep smoking opium under control and in that
way gradu
Colonel Sharman said that just
before the outbreak of the war in the Pacific,
Australia was innocently assuming a role of
participation in smuggling into
the United States and Canada. The stuff was coming on ships to Sydney enroute from Singapore,
Hong Kong and than reshipped to the United
States and Canada via Honolulu.
Mr. de Voogd said that one thing that struck him was that the more one tries
to suppress opium the higher the price goes in the illicit traffic and the more profitable the illicit
traffic becomes, which is an encouragement to smuggling. The old
argument was that when one raises prices there would be competition among the traders and better control of
the trade. It struck him that it should be realized that in any country when one
raises prices as in Canada, it is more difficult to suppress the illicit trade.
When prices rise, the possibility of getting people interested in the trade is greater. So long
as opium products are high in price it is difficult to suppress the traffic no
matter how much you endeavor to do so.
Mr. Anslinger said that the Americans
never allowed the sale of
opium in the Phillippines and that when the Japanese
moved in, it is not likely that
the
United States would have
got the
support which it did get from the Filipinos if the United States Government had sold
the Filipinos opium
for a generation as had been done by the British Government in Burma.
Mr. de Voogd inquired in regard to the experience of the United States in the Phillippine Islands
concerning the supprression of smoking opium.
Mr. Anslinger said that there had been an underground traffic but that it was no
longer a problem such as existed in Hong Kong. He had no doubt that the
Philippinos would have smoked had the United States Government permitted
it. In the Phillippines most of the smokers were Chinese.
C
Mr. May said he felt that the Dutch would go along and suppress smoking
opium if the suppression were universal. Mr. de Voogd said he was personally convinced
that his Government would be willing to go to extreme limits through a generally
apllied international arrangement
for humanitarian reasons. Mr. Anslinger remarked that one cannot have the Four Freedoms and still sell opium.
Mr.de Voogd said that as far as he could see all governments concerned agreed to the final object
to be reached, viz., total prohibition of opium smoking, and that the
differences of opinion concerned only the methods to be applied to reach this
aim. As long as
opium was available in the Far East in
such large quantities the Netherlands Government has been
of the
opinion that the best possible way of limiting and finally abolishing the use of opium
was a system of government control.
Under this system the use of smoking opium in the Netherlands East Indies had been
reduced in 1939 to one half of what it was in 1930. Mr. Anslinger pointed out that
many of the smoking opium addicts have turned to heroin to satisfy their
addiction and that the representatives of the Netherlands Government at Geneva have reported large heroin
seizures. He stated that there had been a reduction in the number of registered smokers but that
the trade showed that monopolies did not reduce the number of smokers. As in Hong
Kong, the
monopoly was costing the Government money instead of bringing money in. If the monopoly
had not existed and the money it took to pay for the monopoly had been given to the police,
the police could probably have suppressed the smugglers.
Colonel Sharman said that of course China is the key to the situation from the
production standpoint and that there is no use
asking
Great Britain or the Dutch to do anything until opium production ceased in China.
Mr. de Voogd said that
international cooperation would be the solution to the problem and that the
production of opium had a bearing on the control of the monopolies. Colonel
Sharman pointed out that the medical needs of the
world are
Colonel Sharman said he understood that present American policy
through military action would be to
suppress opium
Mr. Anslinger said that
the answer was "Yes" in the territories controlled by the Jananese;
that the same policy will apply regardless of the territory where the American
forces are in occupation.
Mr. de Voogd asked whether the Americans would find any smoking opium in the
Netherlands Indies new. Mr. Anslinger said that he was quite sure that the
scorched earth policy would not apply to opium.
Mr. de Voogd also inquired whether the Japanese are importing opium. Mr.
Anslinger said that in Burma they reduced the tax on opium so that the people
could buy more cheaply from the Japanese than they had been able to do from the
British. Mr. de Voogd remarked that that was propaganda. Mr. Anslinger admitted
that this was so and that on the part of this country the Japanese have been
hammered in the press and in magazines and that the
Japanese counter almost every month. He said that opinion in the United States
was crystallizing against the opium monopolies and,
he read the
following excerpt from a letter from an American who
lived in Hong Kong just before the war:
"Hong Kong was founded on and, indirectly at least, was lost due to traffic, official
business for profit, based on Opium and other narcotics. Under the enforcement of the Harrison
Narcotic Act our Treasury Department cleaned up illicit traffic in narcotics in America.
What has our State Department done to limit the opium trade as a means of
colonial exploitation
in Hong Kong.
"Under the status quo, providing the American Navy should capture Hong Kong tomorrow, the official
opium stores would probably be reopened by next week.
"Should the American Navy indirectly foster the opium trade abroad when they condemn
it at home?"
Mr. Anslinger said that this letter was typical of American reaction and also of
Canadian reaction.
Mr. de Voogd inquired about the situation in India. Colonel Sharman said that
that situation will have to be faced. Mr. Anslinger stated that about the first
of this year a seizure of
Indian opium in the illicit traffic in the United States was made for the first
time; that in India the annual consumption of opium is
about 500 tons, or twice the needs of the entire world for medical and scientific
purposes.
Colonel Sharman said that since the outbreak of war an Empress boat came toVancouver and the Chinese
crew members went ashore. Chinatown was flooded
and it cost the Canadian Government about $ 3,000 to round up the opium and
prosecute the Chinese traffickers in the opium so landed. It was found
that some of the opium was Iranian and some had Singapore markings; in fact, it came from
all over the world. The crew members invested all their available money in opium.
Colonel Sharman
said that Canada
has the same problem at Halifax. where boats
with
part Oriental crews arrive, and that there are still opportunities to buy opium
all over the world.
Mr. May said that he thougt that he was correct in thinking that so
far as the present problem is concerned, the British in the British Isles
and the Dutch
in Europe are opposed to smoking opium monopolies.
Mr. May said that there was a colonial problem and a health problem and that the
problem has its financial aspects also. It seemed to him that when the political
question enters, the United Nations are in agreement upon enough big problems
that they should not disagree on the opium problem. He believed that all
friction could be ironed out.
Mr. Watt said that he could not say what the viewpoint of his Government would
be in the present situation. Mr. May, said that this meeting was informal that
one could speak without. binding himself or his Government, Mr. Watt said that
he personally had no technical knowledge of this subject and was not in a
position, therefore, to give detailed information about Australian opium policy
of the kind which could be supplied by technical officers He would however
attempt to estimate the reactions of Australians as a whole to the matters
raised in discussion and comment upon some political aspects of the problem.
Australians of course wholeheartedly supported efforts made to reduce the evils
of opium
smoking. They supported this policy on humanitarian grounds. If traffic in opium
or opium smoking in Australia. were increased for any reason, and this became
known to the public, public opinion would undoubtedly press for it's
suppression. Australia had cooperated in the international regulation of drugs
by ratifying certain international conventions, and he had no doubt that the
administrative authorities in Australia would cooperate with such authorities in
other countries regarding seizure of opium and other means to suppress the
illicit traffic. So far as the suppression of opium smoking outside Australia in
other areas of the Southwestern Pacific and the Far East was concerned, however,
he doubted whether Australia had a definite policy as yet. This was not
unnatural , because the Government was concentrating on problems connected with
the possible invasion of Australia by the Japanese, rather than upon problem,
which would arise when Australians with other United Nations forces invaded
territories now occupied by the Japanese. Thus he did not think that Australia
had at present any definite view on the question whether opium smoking could be
abolished in some areas outside Australia without substantial economic
consequences which other countries might wish to avoid. A step in formulating
such an Australian policy had however been taken as the Australian Legation had
forwarded to Australia the substance of the informal discussion which took place
at the meeting held on January 13, 1943. So far no reaction from Australia had
been received but the matter could be taken up again after this meeting when the
results of the discussion were sent to Australia. Mr. Watt said that on the
political side he had little doubt that the Australian Government would not wish
to have two conflicting policies put into force by troops collaborating in the
same occupied area or even in areas alongside one another. Just what policy the
Australian Government would support he was not in a position to say, but he felt
sure they would desire to see one policy in force rather than two conflicting
policies Summing up his remarks, Mr. Watt said that on the humanitarian side
Australia undoubtedly supported efforts to minimise or extinguish opium smoking
and was not likely to tolerate an increase in Australia; she had collaborated in
certain international action through international conventions; as regards the
economic effects of abolishing Government monopolies in areas outside Australia,
he did not think the Australian Government had yet considered the problem
thoroughly or reached a conclusion. Informal discussions such as these reported
to Australia would provide a means of bringing the importance of the subject
under the Government's attention.
Professor Chamberlain commented that the Australians have vigorous support at
home. Mr. Anslinger said that he had observed a substantial traffic developing
in Australia before the war. Mr. Watt inquired whether this was going or coming.
Mr. Anslinger replied that it was going to Australia
and coming from Australia. There was a two way traffic which the Australian
police promptly suppressed. The Americans had given the evidence on
which the action of the Australian authorities was based. There was also
addiction in Australia in the last few years. In Sydney there was a substantial
opium traffic in some of the restaurants used as places of distribution.
Colonel Sharman said that it had been found by experience that one way of making
sure that the traffic is controlled is to increase the penalties. The
traffickers then prefer to go elsewhere. The Canadians had that exemplified when
marihuana became a serious menace. Men came up from New York and sold marihuana
cigarettes at 40 cents each. The courts at that
time did not know anything about the drug. Colonel
Sharman said that he had an article in regard to marihuana multigraphed and sent to
the courts. Subsequently a case came up involving the smuggling of marihuana
into Canada by the boatswain of a Canadian liner and the judge gave the offender
four years. The overseas traffic
stopped. That is one way to keep the traffic away, he
said.
Mr. Anslinger corroborated Colonel Sharman's remarks. He queried whether that
was not the weakness in the Far
East where the opium monopolies exist and penalties are so
low. Mr. de Voogd said that that was true, he supposed..