Story: Drugs

This petition from G. W. Moy, an Auckland Chinese market gardener, and 34 other Chinese people was presented to Parliament in 1901. Like other petitions from the Chinese community at that time it noted that opium-smoking was morally and physically degrading, and stated that while it was largely confined to the Chinese community, it was spreading to the 'European youths of the colony'. The campaign against opium-smoking was very much an initiative of the Chinese, who sought to reform and improve their own people, but did play on fears that others might become addicted. Parliament quickly responded with an act prohibiting both the smoking of opium and the importation of the drug in a form suitable for smoking.