When carried to excess, opium-smoking becomes an inveterate habit ; but this happens chiefly in individuals of weak will power who would just as easily become the victims of intoxicating drinks, and who are practically moral imbeciles, often addicted also to other forms of depravity. The effect in bad cases is to cause loss of appetite, a leaden pallor of the skin and a degree of leanness so excessive as to make its victims appear like living skeletons. All inclination for exertion gradually becomes lost, business is neglected, and certain ruin to the smoker follows. By its Charter or Covenant, the regulation of the traffic of opium was expressly delegated to the League of Nations, whose efforts in endeavouring to secure the strictly legitimate use of the drug, may be seen in the pamphlet mentioned in the references below.
See Pharmaceutical foam. (1) xi. p. 269, xiv. p. 395; (2) x. ID- 434; Impey, Report on Malwa Opium (Bombay, 1848) ; Report on Trade of Hankow (1869) ; New Remedies (1876), p. 229 ; Pharmacographia (1879) p. 42; Journal of the Royal Society of Arts (1882) ; The Friend of China (1883), etc. Report of the Straits Settlements, Fed erated Malay States, Opium Commission (1908), App. xxiii. and xxiv.; Allen, Commercial Organic Analysis, vol. iii. pt. iv. p. 355; Frank Browne, Report on Opium (Hong Kong, 1908) ; and Pharma ceutical Journ. 192o I. p. 274—"Some Constituents of Opium Smoke"; G. Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India (1892) ; H. Moissan, Comptes rendus, of the 5th of December 1892, iv. p. 33; Lalande, Archives de medicine navale, t. 1. (189o) ; International Opium Commission (1909), vol. ii. "Report of the Delegations"; Squire, Companion to the British Pharmacopeia (1916) (19th edi tion) ; Pharmaceutical Journ. 1910 I. pp. 524 ; Pharmaceutical Journ. 1920 I. p. 274; League of Nations pamphlet—Social and Humanitarian Work—Traffic in Opium and other Dangerous Drugs; J. D. Mann and W. A. Brend, Forensic Medicine and Toxicology; British Pharmaceutical Codex 1923 ed. p. 680. (F. BRo.) OPIUM TRAFFIC. The use of the poppy and the coca leaf goes back to time immemorial. However, its organized use for the purposes of commerce and revenue seems to have developed in the last 200 years, in spite of protests against its use for other than medical and scientific purposes.
In 1783 Warren Hastings pronounced opium to be "a pernicious article of luxury which ought not to be permitted but for the pur pose of foreign commerce only !" A few years later the directors of the East India company wrote : "If it were possible to prevent the use of the drug altogether except strictly for the purpose of medicine we would gladly do it in compassion to mankind," and Lord Ashley in 1843 proposed a resolution in the British parlia ment to the effect that the continuance of the opium monopoly and opium trade "was utterly inconsistent with the honour and duty of a Christian kingdom." Yet to-day there are still countries
whose colonies obtain large revenues from such monopolies.
The importation of opium into China by foreign traders led to the war of 184o between Great Britain and China. The Chinese, in spite of the fact that they were not the victors and despite any pressure brought to bear upon them, still refused to legalize the opium trade. China was now open to the world and a huge smug gling trade in opium sprang up which has given rise to endless dif ficulties ever since, both to the Chinese and to the British Govern ments.
The second war broke out between China and Great Britain, with France as her ally, 15 years later, and, after its close, not only was the cultivation of opium in China itself permitted, but the import of opium from India was also legalized. Yet the Chi nese Government still continued to regard the use of opium as an important moral and economic question, and, in the year 1906, she decided to put an end to the use of the drug within ten years. For this reason, in the following year, she entered into what is known as the "Ten Years' Agreement with India," by which China should cease the cultivation of the poppy and forbid the consump tion of opium on the understanding that the export of Indian opium to China should be reduced pari passu and cease altogether in ten years. At first this undertaking was carried out faithfully by both parties concerned, and according to a statement made by Sir John Jordan at one of the meetings of the opium advisory com mittee, China in 1917 had almost freed herself from the curse of the poppy. Political troubles, however, broke out, effective gov ernment in China was suspended, and to-day the production of opium in China is not only a great national but an international problem.