Anslinger had named Yunnan Province in southwestern China as the leading opium-growing area. Colony officials will concede that some opium may be grown in Yunnan, but they believe that a much greater share is cultivated in northwest Laos, northern Thailand and the Shan States of eastern Burma. These four areas are so close to one another that the difference between the two hypotheses is more political than geographic.
Regardless of which field the poppy comes from, colony officials have found that more than half the opium seized upon entering Hong Kong has arrived on ships and planes that made their last previous stop at Bangkok, Thailand. It is presumed that few drugs arrived bearing the name and address of the manufacturer or the stamp giving the country of origin.
In 1960, the colony’s antinarcotics units set what they believe to be a world record for drug seizures, grabbing 39 shipments that included 3,626 pounds of opium, 153 pounds of morphine, 337 pounds of morphine hydrochloride, 5 pounds of heroin and 155 pounds of barbitone. On November 30, 1960, the Preventive Service captured 1,078 pounds of raw opium hidden in bundles of hollowed-out teakwood on a newly arrived ship. Less than two weeks later they discovered another vessel trying the same trick and made a haul of 769 pounds of raw opium, 16 pounds of prepared opium, 45½ pounds of morphine and 293 pounds of morphine hydrochloride. There were 50 seizures in 1961, putting a further serious crimp in the smuggling racket.
Feeling persecuted and hurt, many smugglers shifted their base of operations to Singapore. Even so, it was not an unqualified triumph for Hong Kong’s antinarcotics force; by pinching off the drug supply they forced its market price sky-high, and desperate addicts began stealing and robbing to pay for their dope.
Halting the manufacture of heroin within the colony is as difficult as catching dope smugglers. A heroin “factory” requires little space and can be set up in some obscure corner of the New Territories or lodged in an expensive top-floor apartment on Hong Kong Island; the profit margin is so great that production costs are but a small obstacle. Enforcement costs are almost as steep. In 1959, the Preventive Service trebled its manpower. In February, 1961, maximum penalties for drug manufacturing were raised from a fine of $8,750 and ten years in prison to a $17,500 fine and life imprisonment.