§ 12. Sir J. D. REESasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the Secretary of State has information to the effect that, following upon the adoption of the Government's present opium policy, the illicit possession, sale, and use of cocaine in India has largely increased; and whether he is aware that one Nzer Hussein Raja Hussein was, on 8th July, sentenced in Bombay to a year's rigorous imprisonment for illicit possession?
Mr. ROBERTSThe use of cocaine for non-medical purposes has been on the increase in India, as in other countries, but the Secretary of State sees no reason to ascribe this to the opium policy of the 1896 Government of India, which continues, so far as internal consumption is concerned, to be one of Excise regulation, as in the past. He has seen a newspaper report of the case referred to in the second part of the question.