The Aboriginal Protection and Restrictions of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 was an Act of the Parliament of Queensland. As a result of dispersal, malnutrition, opium and diseases, it was widely believed in Queensland that Aborigines were members of a 'dying race'. Pressure from certain quarters of the community saw the Government of Queensland commissioner Archibald Meston to assess the issue. Meston made a number of recommendations, and some of these became the basis of the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897. The creators of this Act saw it as a solution to a short term problem, but the administrators of the legislation had a different idea, and from the beginning used it as a device for social engineering and control, essentially becoming the instrument with