An excitement, however, arose in England, and the societies who, belonging to one of the most intemperate races in the world, make it their vocation to preach temperance to the most abstemious and sober of nations, drove the Government of India to experiment on Burma. Since 1893 one device after another has been tried to prevent Burmans from getting opium. The results appear to have been that contraband opium has been driven to some extent from the market; that the consumption of Government opium which has paid duty has doubled; that hundreds of people are punished yearly, not a few on false charges, for offences against the Opium Act, many of them by imprisonment; that the use of cocaine and other drugs worse than opium has been substituted for it, and in spite of the police is growing.
The following passage from a very excellent and accurate handbook of Burma by Sir J. George Scott, K.C.I.E. (Alexander Moring, Ltd., 1906) is worth quoting as the opinion of a man who knows the country well:--
"In Kokang and the Wa States the out-turn (of opium) runs to tons. West of the Salween, Loimaw is the only place where opium is systematically grown for profit. The cultivators are all Chinamen, and the amount produced in the season reaches about four thousand pounds. The price ranges from twelve to fifteen rupees for three and a half pounds. No doubt a very great deal is smuggled into Burma by opium-roads--tracks only passable by coolies, and not known to many. It is to be noted that there are no victims to opium in the opium-producing districts, any more than there are in Ssu-ch'uan, where the people are the wealthiest in China and half the crops are poppy. It is only in places where opium is prohibitive in price that there are victims to opium. If a man is accustomed to take opium, he must have it to soothe his nerves under excessive fatigue; if he lives in a malarious district, it is necessary to kill the bacteria. When such a man is poor and comes to a place where opium duty is high, he has to starve himself to get the anodyne for his muscles, quivering under the weight of loads which no white man could carry, or to soothe the racking fever in his bones. He dies of want and opium is denounced. Where opium is cheap, the people are healthy and stalwart and the women are fruitful. East of the Salween the universal opinion of opium is that of the Turk, who stamps on his opium lozenges _Mash Alla'h_, 'the gift of God.' Some of the Wa eat as well as smoke opium; but, so far as is known, regular opium-eating is rare, and none of the races drink it in the form of an emulsion, like the _Kusumba_ of the Rajputs. West of the Salween, the European cant about opium has penetrated. A Shan either tells deliberate lies or says he only smokes when he has fever. The Rumai is pious and hypocritical, and says his opium is intended for his ponies or for cases of malarial fever. There are, of course, cases of excess, but the opium victim is never the hideous spectacle of the man sodden with alcohol or the repulsive bestiality that the man becomes who takes food to excess" (pp. 268-69).