NCJ Number
143019
Date Published
1992
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This chapter examines both the efforts on the part of the Hong Kong government to raise revenue from the retail sale of opium within the colony itself and the increasingly punitive stance to drug trafficking adopted since 1945.
Abstract
An attempt is made to explain how the definition of the problem changed from one of how to secure and protect opium as an important source of government revenue to one of how to suppress domestic drug use. The contribution of opium to British rule in Hong Kong is responsible for the colonial government's determination to resist international pressure in support of total abolition. Due to the fact that the government's revenue base rested on opium, it adopted a punitive approach to the control of "dangerous" drugs, that is, drugs in competition with opium. Then, when the opium monopoly ended in March 1943, opium simply was classified as another dangerous drug and thus became subject to the provisions of the existing Dangerous Drugs Ordinance. Considerable evidence is available to support that considerations of state survival and development have influenced considerably the fate of drug legislation in Hong Kong. 8 notes and 20 references