HALF-A-TON OF DOPE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 419, 31 December 1932, Page 6

HALF-A-TON OF DOPE

DiSGUlSED DRUGS GERMANY SUPPLIES HALF WORLD WITH. NARCOTICS SMUGGLING DODGES Sydney, Saturday. Half ' a ton of headache powder! The ship's manifsst said "1120 lb tins of aspirin." lt was heroin That gives an idea of the seale on whieh: it has been attempted from time to time to naeet the demand in China for nacotics to supplement or replaee opium. Opium is used with varying degrees of freedom in most parts of China, but several factors — opium taxation, convenience in use and greater potency — have led to an increasing use of morphia, eocaine and heroin. Pormerly, these drugs were used as "cures" for opium and as such replaced one evil with an infinitely greafer one. Made by the Million Anti-opium pills, made by the million eontain principally heroin, strychnine, quinine and ealfeine. The heroin dispels the craving for opium by ereating a more intense one for , heroin and the facility with whieh the pills can be carried and swallowed enables the addict to maintain a eontinual state of nareosis without the Iqss of time involved in smoking opium. Then there are morphia pills — a mixture of morphia and flour — whieh are either smoked in pipes or cigarettes, or swallowed. Ten or a dozen of these pills a day produce a greater and more continuous nareosis than the smoking of an ounee of opium and at one twentieth the cost. Source of Supply All the contraband narcotics seized by the Customs authorities in the main ports of China corne from the continent of Europe and Japan. A six months' seizure of narcotics at Shanghai comprised 1554 ozs. of morphia from Czechoslovakia, 880oz. of heroin from Basle, 2112oz. of heroin from Zurich, 936oz. of heroin and morphia from Vienna, 2640oz. from Holiand, 326 oz. of morphia from Budapest and 105 oz. of cocaine from Darmstadt. With the exception of 96, the labels showed Germany as the country of origin. Since 1923 not an ounce of British or American narcotics has been seized. Tbcugli ihe 430,000,000 people in * i.: ;a v.ouiu require quite a lot of u.ay a small proportion ..ave reoourse to Western remedies, aua so lt was that the extra large eonsignment of "aspirin," refeiTed to duove, on i.ts arrival ac Shanghai on a Japanese steamer from Germany, aroused the suspieion of Customs officers. That eonsignment was worth £25,00u and the Customs exarniner was offered £10,000 to let it throug'h. Salts as Disguise Large consignrnents of Epsom salts have also aroused suspieion, and examination has diselosed a couple o£ pounds of drugs in the centre of a hundredweight caslt. The breaking open of a large number of hundredweight drums of Glauber's salts taken from a Japanese steamer at Tienstin revealed 300 lb. of morphia and heroin embsdded in the salts. Proof of the honesty of the Swiss manufacturer of a large quantity of rheumatism and sciatica cure was furnished by the statement on the label that it contained aspirin, citric acid, quinine, lithia and stareh, but analysis failed to show any of those substances It was heroin. . In a shipment of iron bedsteads, the hollow posts were found to be fxlled with morphia, a eonsignment of watches from Europe turned out to be just watch cases filled with morphia, and false bottoms in bird eages, tea chests and lcettles have all proved repositories for narcotics. The proximity of big ehemical work at Osaka in Japan has helped to keep up the supply which finds its wuy intj northern China in various guises. In-roin having been found conin va.-hiiig soda, wooden clogs i;inl i'i "• 4 musnrooms!