The Opium Evil

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 20, 1909

Since 1878 the importation of smoking opium into the United States has increased more than 250 per cent according to facts collected by the American commissioners appointed to attend the international congress, which meets at Shanghai next year, to consider the question. During 1907, 157,000 pounds were imported, about 75 per cent of which is used in the manufacture of morphin. Reports indicate that in the United States the use of opium as a habit has grown to an alarming extent and that this growth is not among the Chinese residents, but among the whites, not so much in the slums as among the professional classes. Chinese doctors have devised a cure and are impressing on their countrymen the destructive influence of the use of the drug, and among the Chinese here strong efforts are being made to abolish the habit. On the other hand, it is estimated that there are 5,000 white persons who are smokers of opium in New York City. The “strenuous life” is again brought forward as a reason or excuse. — Medical Record.