Evening star. [volume], December 19, 1947, Page A-20, Image 20

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
Shanghai Speculators
Reaping Huge Profits
In Trading in Drugs
By Eddie Creighton
Associated Press Foreign Correspondent
SHANGHAI, Dec. 19.—The ill and
dying in Shanghai may have to pay
fantastic prices for drugs which sell
at standard prices in the United
States.
Reasons are the ease of storing
and smuggling drugs, and the avid
| legal and illegal trade in them, and
behind all these the government’s
i import restrictions aimed at con
serving foreign exchange.
A vial of streptomycin selling for
$4 retail in the United States whole
sales here for about $800,000 in
Chinese currency (or about $12 at
the official rate of exchange—still
higher on the black market).
Besides streptomycin, penicillin
and alleged cures and preventives
for impotency are popular items on
' the smuggler’s list and speculative
market.
Risks Involved.
There are risks. Smugglers have
no protection against confiscation
or loss. Speculators have to operate
carefully lest they upset their own
market by dumping too much scarce
medicine all at once.
The other day I watched a
Chinese operator at work. He had
10,000 ampules of a drug that was
a great favorite on the market at
the time. If he had tried to sell it
all at once, he could have forced his
own market down by as much as
30 per cent. Instead, he played it
cagy, selling 200 ampules at a timej
to numerous small buyers—none ol
whom knew that as a group they
had bought enough of that parti
cular drug to stabilize the market
for six months.
. Here are some of the arguments
he used on his Chinese “friends” to
make them lose 15 per cent within a
week—when the market realized the
drug no longer was scarce:
"Mr. Chang, a friend of mine has
just brought in 200 ampules from
Hong Kong. He needs money, so
he's getting rid of them cheap. Here
is an oportunity for you. • • *”
Arguments Offered.
“Mr. Shing, some time back a
member of my stafT bought 200 am
pules to prevent his savings from
depreciating with the currency. He
wants to buy a motorcycle now and
is selling cheap. This is your
chance. * • •”
“Mr. Wong, I hear your office paid
you a three-month bonus. I know
you don’t want your money to de
preciate, so this is your chance to
put It Into something solid. A cer
tain doctor needs cash and Is selling
200 ampules. • • *”
In this way he sold 3,000 ampules
In one afternoon, with some buyers
begging him to sell them twice as
many as he offered.
Although his sales eventually
•
forced down prices, such drops In
drugs are relatively rare.
As long as people fall ill In China,
and as long as the government per
mits only a limited quota of needed
medicines to enter, prices probably
will keep on going up.
Rheumatism is the family name
of a group of diseases.
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