The revenue from licenses is very large.  No dealer is permitted to sell more than three tolas (about one and one-eighth ounces) to any person, and no opium can be consumed upon the premises of the dealer.  Private smoking clubs and public opium dens were forbidden in 1891, but the strict enforcement of the law has been considered inexpedient for many reasons, chief of which is that less opium is consumed when it is smoked in these places than when it is used privately in the form of pills, which are more common in India than elsewhere.  Frequent investigation has demonstrated that opium consumers are more apt to use it to excess when it is taken in private than when it is taken in company, and there are innumerable regulations for the government of smoking-rooms and clubs and for the restriction and discouragement of the habit.  The amount consumed in India is about 871,820 pounds annually.  The amount exported will average 9,800,000 pounds.

Opium intended for export is sold at auction at Calcutta at the beginning of every month, and, in order to prevent speculation, the number of chests to be sold each month during the year is announced in January.  Considerable fluctuation in prices is caused by the demand and the supply on hand in China.  The lowest price on record was obtained at the June sale in 1898, when all that was offered went for 929 rupees per chest of 140 pounds, while the highest price ever obtained was 1,450 rupees per chest.  The exports of opium vary considerably.  The maximum, 86,469 chests, was reached in 1891; the minimum, 59,632, in 1896.

The consumption in India during the last few years has apparently decreased.  This is attributed to several reasons, including increased prices, restrictive measures for the suppression of the vice, the famine, changes in the habits of the people, and smuggling; but it is the conviction of all the officials concerned in handling opium that its use is not so general as formerly, and its abuse is very small.  They claim that it is used chiefly by hard-working people and enables them to resist fatigue and sustain privation, and that the prevailing opinion that opium consumers are all degraded, depraved and miserable wretches, enfeebled in body and mind, is not true.  It is asserted by the inspectors that the greater part of the opium sold in India is used by moderate people, who take their daily dose and are actually benefited rather than injured by it.  At the same time it is admitted that the drug is abused by many, and that the habit is usually acquired by people suffering from painful diseases, who begin by taking a little for relief and gradually increase the dose until they cannot live without it.

In 1895 an unusually active agitation for the suppression of the trade resulted in the appointment of a parliamentary commission, of which Lord Brassey was chairman.  They made a thorough investigation, spending several months in India, examining more than seven hundred witnesses, of which 466 were natives, and their conclusions were that it is the abuse and not the use of opium that is harmful, and “that its use among the people of India as a rule is a moderate use, that excess is exceptional and is condemned by public opinion; that the use of opium in moderation is not attended by injurious consequences, and that no extended physical or moral degradation is caused by the habit.”