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A 37
XI.
OPIUM DROSS.
There is considerable weight of evidence to show that the
smoking of re-prepared opium dross (the ash produced by smoking
opium) is much more noxious than the smoking of pure prepared
opium, and that the swallowing of opium dross is considerably
more pernicious than the smoking of re-prepared dross.
2. Several witnesses have recorded their impression that
swallowing of dross has become more common owing to steady
increases in the price of prepared opium. Whatever the causes, we
accept the view that the swallowing of dross is relITettably common
in Malaya.
3. We find that there are no past records to show the normal
product of dross resulting from smoking prepared opium, but we
have heard from the Government Analvst, Straits Settlements, that
the theoretical product of dross is almost as high as 60 per cent of
the prepared opium from which it results. Smokers vary considerably
in their methods, and we have no doubt that there is, in
practice, a wide variation in the weight and quality of the dross
produced by various smokers.
4. The officer in charge of the Government Monopolies in the
Federated Malay States states that from his practical experience
the average product of dross cannot be expected to be as high as
50 per cent and that 40 grammes may be taken to represent the normal
product of dross resulting from the smoking of 100 grammes of
prepared opium. We have accordingly adopted this percentage
for the normal product of opium dross in our statistics .
. 5. It appears to us desirable to compare the opium smoking
habit and the dross swallowing habit from the aspect of morphine
content.
6. The Government Analyst, Straits Settlements, informs' us
that the morphine assimilated by smoking prepared opium is only
one-tenth of one per cent of the weight of prepared opium smoked.
A steady smoker of cne 3-hoon (17t grains) packet a day would,
therefore, assimilate .0175 grains of morphine each day or approximately
one-half of one grain of morphine a month.
7. The position is entirely changed if the smoker swallows the
dross produced by the prepared opium which he has smoked. On
our arbitrary basis of dross product, 17t grains of prepared opium
would give 7 grains of dross with a morphine content of 5·65 per
cent (Appendix XIV). The swallowing of the dross produced from
one 3-hoon (171 grains) packet would, therefore, result in the
assimilation of .3955 grains of morphine. .
8. In the combined process of smoking and swallowing the
resultant dross, a consumer of one 3-hoon packet a day would
assimilate .4130 grains of morphine each day, or slightly more than
would be aSiimilated by a person who was a steady consumer bv
the process of smoking alone. of 7 chees a day. .' •