Epilogue

Abstract

Even as East End magistrates and police were shutting down cafés where interracial social contact reportedly took place, raiding Chinese gambling houses, and deporting the Chinese men accused of running them, international pressure was growing for Britain to bring its domestic narcotics laws into line with the stipulations of the 1912 international Hague Opium Convention. The incorporation of the latter into the Treaty of Versailles, combined with the growing public anxiety over gender and vice in the wake of the Billie Carleton affair, gave Sir Malcolm Delevigne of the Home Office the political momentum he needed to expand the state’s power vis-à-vis the trade in illicit narcotics.¹ The reported growth of narcotics addiction in the empire also helped spur this change.² On September 1, 1920, the Dangerous Drugs Act made permanent the wartime emergency powers regulating narcotics.³ Building on the foundation of DORA 40b, the act absolutely prohibited the importation of prepared opium; prohibited, except under license, the import, export, or manufacture of raw opium, cocaine, morphine, and heroin; and raised the maximum penalties for violation of these statutes to six months’ imprisonment and a fine of £200.