Opium in China by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 26, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 50.

Opium in China

By Editor

Opium in China.—We most earnestly hope that the reform which the imperial edict points out will be thoroughly executed in the Celestial Empire. The regulations are exceedingly stringent. It is said that one-tenth of the ground now used for the cultivation of the poppy must be used for other purposes each year under penalty of confiscation, and that this shall be so carried out that at the end of ten years no more opium shall be produced in China. Every person using opium must be registered, and only registered persons can buy it. Persons over sixty years old will be permitted to continue the use of the drug; those under sixty must decrease the use of it at the rate of twenty per cent. annually, and all high officials under sixty must set a date at which they will give up the habit. Teachers, scholars, soldiers, and sailors must abstain after three months. Opium dens must be closed in six months, and the drug will be sold only by government officials on physician's prescriptions or to authorized persons. American law-breakers, we are inclined to think, would laugh at the idea of carrying out all these particulars, but it may be our yellow friends in the East will do better. We hope so; it is one of the greatest curses of China.