India has always been one of the large pro ducers of opium, and England has steadily maintained that, so long as China produced most of the opium used in that country, and even exported it to other countries, there was no )ustification in the demand that exports of Indian opium to China be forbidden. Even when China had announced her intention of suppressing the trade, many statesmen in England questioned the sincerity of that declaration.
In 1905, however, the influence of the anti opium societies became so great that the Im perial Senate was compelled to pass drastic laws against the opium traffic. In 1906 China produced 330,000 piculs of opium — a picul be ing equal to 133% pounds avoirdupois. She also imported 51,000 picules from India. The government decreed that both the cultivation of the poppy and the use of opium must cease.
In 1910 the area devoted to poppy culture had decreased from 614,000 acres (in 1906) to 350,000 acres, and the production of opium had been reduced by more than 25,000,000 pounds. The reports from the five principal opium-using provinces show that the number of shops in which opium is sold has been re duced from more than 42,000 to about 12,000. The number of users of the drug (13,000,000 in 1906) has also been largely reduced and is steadily declining. To promote this condition,
hundreds of public "refuges* for the scientific treatment of victims of the opium habit have been established in China. In 1910, it was re ported that nearly 1,200,000 cures had been ef fected; nearly 1,500,000 patients were then un dergoing treatment.
In 1912 the National laws against the culti vation, sale and smoking of opium went into effect with the support of nearly every news paper in China. Large quantities of opium were burned, as much as $10,000 to $15,000 worth being consumed in a single fire.
One of the most serious obstacles to be surmounted by the anti-opium societies has been the existence in China of a stock of Indian and Chinese opium valued at $70,000,000, upon which large loans had been advanced by the banks. See Cituntat. ; COCAINE; INTOXICATION; OPIUM ; TOBACCO.
F. H., The Opium Habit' (and other drug habits) (New York 1881) ; McBride, C. A., 'Modern Treat ment of Alcoholism and Drug Narcotism' (New York 1909) ; Pettey, G. E., (Narcotic Drug Diseases and Allied Ailments' (Philadelphia 1913) ; Sainsbury, H., and the Drug Habit' (London 1909) ' • U. S. Department of Agriculture, Farmers' Bulletins 377 and 393 (VVashington 1910-11) ; U. S. Public Health Service Report 146 (Washington 1913).