No surer testimony to the reality of
the evil effects of opium can be found than the horror with which China's
next-door neighbour views it.... The Japanese to a man fear opium as we
fear the cobra or the rattlesnake, and they despise its victims. There has
been no moment in the nation's history when the people have wavered in
their uncompromising attitude towards the drug and its use, so that an
instinctive hatred possesses them. China's curse has been Japan's warning,
and a warning heeded. An opium user in Japan would be socially a leper.

"The opium law of Japan forbids the importation, the possession, and the
use of the drug, except as a medicine; and it is kept to the letter in a
population of 47,000,000, of whom perhaps 25,000 are Chinese. So rigid are
the provisions of the law that it is sometimes, especially in interior
towns, almost impossible to secure opium or its alkaloids in cases of
medical necessity.... The government is determined to keep the opium
habit strictly confined to what they deem to be its legitimate use, which
use even, they seem to think, is dangerous enough to require special
safeguarding.

"Certain persons are authorized by the head official of each district to
manufacture and prepare opium for medicinal purposes.... That which is up
to the required standard (in quality) is sold to the government: and that
which falls short is destroyed. The accepted opium is sealed in proper
receptacles and sold to a selected number of wholesale dealers
(apothecaries) who in turn provide physicians and retail dealers with the
drug for medicinal uses only. It can reach the patient for whose relief it
is desired only through the prescription of the attending physician. The
records of those who thus use opium in any of its various forms must be
preserved for ten years.

"The people not merely obey the law, but they are proud of it; they would
not have it altered if they could. It is the law of the government, but it
is the law of the people also.... Apparently, the vigilance of the police
is such that even when opium is successfully smuggled in, it cannot be
smoked without detection. The pungent fumes of cooked opium are
unmistakable, and betray the user almost inevitably.... There is an
instance on record where a couple of Japanese lads in North Formosa
experimented with opium just for a lark; and though they were guilty only
on this occasion, they were detected, arrested, and punished."

That is what Jap