The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-07-13

The OPIUM BILL, which on Thursday passed a
second reading in the Assembly by a vote of %
to 10, and was ordered for a final reading to-day,
authorizes the sale by auction of two yearly Ii
censes for Honolulu only, at an upset price of
S2O,0 900 for each license. Bonds are also to
be exacted Of the licensee to the amount of
S20,0 600, not to give, sell or furnish any opium
or preparation of opium to any person other than
Chinese, excepting when given as medicine by a
physician. The penalty for selling opium with
out license is Fixed at 500 and imprisonment at
hard labor not less than ten months.
From 1860 to 1874, there were two licenses
allowed for the sale of opium in Honolulu, at an
upset price of 50, 900 each per annum. For these
there was considerable competition among Chi
nesc merchants, and one year the two licenses
brought S2G 900. Since 1874, when the law was
amended, opium could only be imported by the
Board of Health, and a heavy penalty was i'm
posed on any one having it Illegally in possession.
There exists a considerable difference of opinion
in the community as to which is the wisest
policy to pursue in regard to this opium business.
BY the advocates of the license system it is held
that it is impossible to prevent the use of the drug
among the Chinese by prohibitory laws, for the re-
suit of such laws has invariably been to incite
great activity in smuggling that where one case
of smuggling is detected the probability is that
hundreds escape that admitting the use of opium
to be an evil, it is one that is inseparable from
the presence of 4 large Chinese element in orr
population, and cannot be eradicated so~lOng as
Chinese come here: and that it isbetter for all
o,ucarpo6 fbat m OWL which VIC oo,,oE rop,oyo
should be regulated byCa law strictly enforced.
On the other hand, a committee of the Assem-
bly,, consisting of the Hon. Mcssrs. w. o. Smith,
&. r. Bishop and others, have unanimously re-
commended that no change be made in the exist
ing law, which forbids the sale of opium. They
state in their report:
THAT although Cinnamon still use opium al over
the Kingdom, and Notwithstanding the efforts OF
the Custom House and Police officers it is brought
into the country from foreign ports still, its use
among Hawaiians has very much diminished under
the present law. And this fact is, in the opinion
Of the Committee, the most weighty argument
against granting a license. Its use
has not only diminished among native Hawaiians,
but the evidence of the great majority of those
whose opinions were sought was that it is not so
largely used by Cinnamon themselves as when the
licenses were in operation.'
Intelligent Chinese merchants of this city arc
decidedly opposed to the reopening of the license
system. They say that under the existing law
the consumption Of opium has decreased, SO that
at present it is merely nominal that to again
legalize the traffic (aside from the increase of
crime, poverty and sickness that will ensue among
the lower class of Chinese), will result in no in
considerable damage to the agriculture of the
country, through the loss of labor of opium con-
sumers. We hear that the leading Chinese of
Honolulu propose to memorabilia His Majesty
against giving the Royal sanction TO the bill.