(Received the assent of the Governor General on the 12th October 1872).
An Act to amend the Law relating to Opium in the Panj b.
PREAMBLE
Preamble. Whereas it is expedient to amend the law relating to opium in the Panj b; It is hereby enacted as follows:
This Act may be called The Panjab Opium Law Amendment Act, 1872 :
Local extent. It extends only to the territories under the government of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Panj b:
Commencement. And it shall come into force on the first day of January 1873.
In this Act and in the Panj b Laws' Act, 1872, opium includes also poppy-heads and all intoxicating drugs prepared from the poppy.
Wherever in the said territories an acreage duty is for the time being leviable on the cultivation of the poppy, sections fifteen, nineteen, sixty-two, sixty-five and sixty-six of the Excise Act, 1871, shall have no effect so far as they restrict, directly or indirectly, the sale of opium grown within the said territories, or prohibit the possession or sale of such opium by persons other than licensed vendors.
In prosecutions under the said sections respectively, it shall be assumed, until the contrary is proved, that the opium in respect of which an offence is alleged to have been committed, has been grown without the said territories.
Whenever any rule made by the Local Government under the Panjab Laws' Act, 1872 and relating to the growth, sale or possession of opium, is broken, the opium in respect of which the breach is committed shall be liable to confiscation.