Mr. Dingell: Are these the only States where it is commercially grown?

Dr. Dewey: Yes, sir. At the present time, the largest producing States are Wisconsin, Illinois, and Kentucky. It has been grown in other States. Efforts are being made to grow it in other States for fiber purposes. Before I was connected with the matter of hemps, it was never brought to my attention in any case that marihuana was produced, or was even thought of being grown, to make hemp for fiber purposes

Mr. Cullen: If that is all, we thank you for your testimony.

I want to direct the attention of the committee to the fact that I have a card before me here from Dr. Buckingham. Dr. Buckingham is the District of Columbia veterinarian, and he has requested to be heard for about two minutes. He is not on the list, but, if there is no objection, we will be glad to hear him at this time.

STATEMENT OF DR. D.E. BUCKINGHAM, DISTRICT VETERINARIAN, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Dr. Buckingham: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am veterinarian for the government of the District of Columbia, and I also represent the Board of Examiners of Veterinary Medicine of the District of Columbia. I was formerly the dean and a professor of veterinary materia medica and therapeutics at George Washington University.

I come here in favor of the bill. I would like to outlaw Cannabis sativa. as a drug to be used by veterinarians in their practice, for the reason that a survey of the veterinarians of the District of Columbia, especially those in large animal practice, in which I am engaged, shows that they use very little of it, preferring the use of chloral hydrate in a milk solution, which is far more efficacious in the colics of horses and other large animals. I might say, in this connection that I am veterinarian to the Zoological Gardens here, and I have never given Cannabis to any large animals, either domestic or wild animals.

Because of the immense amount of damage that this drug does, I would like to go on record as voting against the use of it by veterinarians in the District of Columbia.

Unfortunately, I have not read the bill, but with reference to its use by veterinarians, I believe that the entire profession in the District would be behind me in vetoing its use in veterinary practice.

Mr. McCormack: As you may know, this is a bill that is applicable throughout the entire country, and I take it that any legislation specifically applying to the District of Columbia would come before the legislative committee on the District of Columbia.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. McCormack: I understand that several years ago there was a bill pending here, or a uniform bill that has been endorsed by 34 or 35 States of the Union. That bill was pending before the committee several years ago, perhaps for 3 or 4 years. I specifically call this to your attention, because this committee cannot legislate or recommend legislation especially for the District of Columbia. However, your testimony is very valuable in support of this bill, and I do not want you to think, because of my observation, that I do not regard your testimony here this morning as of great value.

Mr. Boehne: Section 15, line 12, includes the District of Columbia.

Mr. McCormack: That includes the District of Columbia, but this bill covers the entire United States, including the District of Columbia. We cannot legislate especially for the District of Columbia.

Mr. Boehne: The section I referred to includes the District of Columbia under the terms of the act.

Mr. McCormack: We have included the District of Columbia. If we did not include the District of Columbia, it would have to be specifically excluded. The point I made is that this bill has general application to the entire United States.

Dr. Buckingham: I am certainly in favor of having the District of Columbia included.

Mr. McCormack: Naturally it would include the District of Columbia, but the bill applies, also, to all of the 48 States of the Union. It is a tax measure, and it will, of course, apply to the District of Columbia, just as it applies to all of the States. You want to outlaw the use of this drug by veterinarians in the District of Columbia.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. Cullen: I think the doctor is appearing before the committee to express his opinion in regard to this drug, and the effect it has on animals. He is not asking that the District of Columbia be exempted from the provisions of the bill, but you want the District included.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: Your activities are confined more or less to the District of Columbia.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: Is there anything, in connection with the profession of veterinary, that would cause a veterinarian who resided elsewhere than in the District of Columbia to have a different viewpoint from that you expressed?

Dr. Buckingham: Where they may possibly have no large animals practice they may use this drug but if you are practicing veterinary medicine, you would find that there were better drugs for the purpose. For instance, they could use morphine or atropine hypodermically with better results.

Mr. Vinson: So far as you are concerned, you think it would have the same effect over the line in Maryland that it would have in the District of Columbia.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: You think it is a harmful drug, and that your profession in the District should be recorded in support of this measure.

Dr. Buckingham: That is right. Perhaps my thought on the subject has been accentuated because of the fact that I attend at the Lorton Penitentiary, as well as the reformatory, and I understand that this drug is mainly used by that type of gentleman who climb in second-story windows, break into banks, and so forth.

Mr. Vinson: And it reaches children in school, also.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. Fuller: Doctor, regulations on this subject that would apply to the District of Columbia would be applicable to the entire United States, would they not?

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir.

Mr. Fuller: Therefore, you are not only opposed to the use of this drug here, but you would eliminate it by regulations not only here, but all over the United States.

Dr. Buckingham: I answered that same question somewhat differently, and I would like to answer it now by saying "Yes."

Mr. Boehne: Is there any evidence to show that this plant is used by larger animals in nature? Will animals, whether wild or domestic, use it in their native State, as a forage plant, or do they reject it?

Dr. Buckingham: This is a foreign drug, but I am not aware of animals using it like they do loco weed on the western range. Would that be a parallel?

Mr. Boehne: Yes. Where it is scattered around through its use as bird seed, and grows along fences, would a grazing cow eat it?

Dr. Buckingham: No, Sir. They might by mistake.

Mr.Boehne: Would they reject it?

Dr. Buckingham: I believe they would.

Mr. Boehne: Naturally, they would prefer not to eat it.

Dr. Buckingham: Yes, sir. Of course, animals eat a number of plants that are of no benefit to them. As they graze, animals will leave aside noxious weeds which might possibly be put in this same category.

Mr. Dingell: Has this weed or plant, marihuana, any relationship to or affinity with the loco weed? Is there any comparable objection there?

Dr. Buckingham: I think the chemical set-up there is considerably different.

Mr. Cullen: This completes the list of witnesses who want to speak in favor of the bill, and we will now hear the opposition. There are four witnesses in opposition, and we will be glad to hear Mr. Lozier at this time.

STATEMENT OF HON. RALPH F. LOZIER, CARROLTON, MO., GENERAL CONSUL OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF OILSEED PRODUCTS

Mr. Cullen: Mr. Lozier, you may State for the record who you represent.

Mr. Lozier: For the record and for the information of those present who do not know me, I will say I am Ralph F. Lozier; my home is in Carrolton, Mo., where I have for many years been engaged in the practice of law. I appear before this committee as general counsel for the National Institute of Oilseed Products, an association composed of about 15 or 20 concerns dealing in and crushing vegetable oil-bearing seed. I have a list of the organizations composing this association, and will hand it to the reporter for the purpose of the record.

(Said list is as follows:)

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF OILSEED PRODUCTS

Member companies of San Francisco, Calif.: Pacific Vegetable Oil Corporation, R.J. Raesling &; Co., C.B. Jennings &;Co., S.L. Jones &;Co., and El Dorado Oil Works.

Member companies of Berkeley, Calif.: Durkie Famous Foods, Inc., and Berkeley Oil &;Meal Co.,

Member company of Oakland, Calif.: Western Vegetable Oil Corporation.

Member companies of Los Angeles, Calif.: Snow Brokerage Co., California Flax Seed Products Co., Copra Oil &;Meal Co., Pacific Nut Oil Co., Globe Grain and Milling Co., Pacific Oil &;Meal Co., Vegetable Oil Products Co., California Cotton Oil Corporation, and Producers Cotton Oil Co., Fresno, Calif.

Spencer Kellogg &;Sons, Inc., Buffalo, N.Y.: Edgewater, N.J. ; Chicago, Ill.; Des Moines, Iowa,; St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth, Minn.; and Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Lozier: May I say to this committee that, in my opinion, the measure before you is one which should not be hastily considered or hastily acted upon. It is of that type of legislation which conceals within its four corners activities, agencies, and results that this committee, without a thorough investigation, would never think were embodied in its measure.

In the first place, I want it distinctly understood that the organizations for which I speak want to go on record as favoring absolutely and unconditionally that portion of this bill which seeks to limit and suppress the use of marihuana as a drug, or for any other injurious purpose. That portion of the bill, it seems to me, can merit the opposition of no right thinking or right-acting man. I agree with the witnesses for the Government that the use of the drug marihuana is a vicious habit that should be suppressed.

I understand that the first use of this drug is lost in the mists of antiquity. It is as old as history, as ancient as civilization: but, no chemists have ever yet been able to very satisfactorily isolate or definitely determine and classify the deleterious principle, element or radical which is the base of this drug. But we do know that the objectionable principle not to be found in the seed or oil but in the flowering tops of the female plants or in the resins therefrom. Every country has a little different name for marihuana. Respectable authorities tell us that in the Orient at least 200,000,000 people use this drug; and when we take into consideration that for hundreds, yes, thousands of years, practically that number of people have been using this drug, it is significant that in Asia and elsewhere in the Orient, where poverty stalks abroad on every hand and where they draw on all the plant resources which a bountiful nature has given that domain-- it is a significant fact that none of these 200,000,000 people has ever, since the dawn of civilization, been found using the seed of this plant or the oil as a drug. Now, if there were any deleterious properties or principles in the seed or oil, it is reasonable to suppose that these orientals who have been reaching out of their poverty for something that would satisfy their morbid appetite, would have discovered it; and the mere fact that for more than 2,000 years the orientals have found this drug only in the flowering tops of female plants and not in the seeds and oils, affords convincing proof that the drug principle does not exist in the plant except in the flowering tops.

For thousands of years they have been handling the seed from this plant, and have been handling the oil extracted from the seed, but down to this good day no medical authority and no respectable writer on materia medica has ever claimed that this deleterious principle is found in the seed or oil. Neither has any reputable botanist ever found that the male plant of this species carries this deleterious substance. This drug, element, principle, radical, or whatever you want to call it, is defined as the glutinous flowering portion of the female plant. In Bengal, the male plant is weeded out or pulled out in the cultivation of the plants, because they recognize that this principle is not present in the male plants, and by preventing fertilization the yield and quality of the drug in the tops are increased. I think that the Government attorneys will not be able to present to this committee a single respectable botanical authority or a single respectable authority on materia medica, or a singe respectable authority on narcotics or toxicology, who will contend for a moment that the deleterious element or principle which we find in the resinous, glutinous portion of the flowering tops of the female plants, is found in the seeds or in the male plants. No one will contend, or no respectable authority will assert, that this deleterious principle is found either in the seed or the oil. If you will refer to the Pharmacopoeia or to the United States Dispensatory, you will find it Stated that this objectionable principle does not exist in the seed, and is not to be found in either the seed or oil

If the committee please, the hemp seed, or the seed of the Cannabis sativa., L. is used in all the Oriental nations and also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. They have been doing that for many generations, especially in periods of famines.

I do not have time to read now from the Pharmacopoeia nor from the United States Dispensatory, but both authorities say that the narcotic principle is absolutely absent from the seed and absent from the oil in this plant.

Mr. Fuller: I do not think that the gentlemen who have presented the case on behalf of the committee, or the Government, have claimed that it was present in the oil.

Mr. Lozier: They have said it was in the seed.

Mr. Fuller: He said there was very little in the seed. He said there would be no injurious effect from the little there was in the seed.

Mr. Lozier: The point I make is this, that this bill is too all-inclusive. This bill is a world-encircling measure. This bill brings the activities, the crushing of this great industry under the supervision of a bureau, which may mean its suppression. Last year there was imported into the United States 62,813,000 pounds of hemp seed; in 1935 there were imported 116,000,000 pounds, and in 1934 there were imported 12,000,000 pounds. In the last 3 years there have been 193,000,000 pounds of hemp seed imported into this country, or an average of 64,000,000 pounds a year. Then, in addition to that, in the 3 years 1934, 1935, and 1936, 752,000 pounds of hemp oil have been imported. Considering that the seed yields 24 percent oil, the importations of oil and seed in the last 3 years amount to 46,946,000 pounds.

Mr. Woodruff: What is the oil used for?

Mr. Lozier: It is a drying oil, and its use is comparable to that of linseed oil or a perilla oil. It has a high iodine principle or strength. It is a rapidly drying oil to use in paints. It is also used in soap and linoleum.

Mr. Cooper: Just what do you object to in this bill?

Mr. Lozier: This bill brings the crushers and importers of hemp seed under its provisions, and requires not only a license fee, which is nominal, but provides for Government supervision, and it provides for reports.

Mr. Cooper: It provides for supervision of what?

Mr. Lozier: Of the industry.

Mr. Vinson: Where do you find that in the bill?

Mr. Lozier: It is included in the definition.

Mr. Dingell: How would you control the drug aspect of it without a reasonable and proper regulation of the entire industry?

Mr. Lozier: The point I make is this: There is no respectable authority, and I measure my words, because I want to be a fair man talking to a fair minded committee-- there is no respectable authority to be found for the statement that this deleterious element is present in either the seed or in the oil of this plant, even in an infinitesimal quantity.

Mr. Dingell: You grant that in order to produce the seed and the oil, you must permit the growth of the marihuana plant.

Mr. Lozier: Not in this country.

Mr. Dingell: Where do you go to get the seed?

Mr. Lozier: Nearly all of the seeds come from the Orient, It is a well known fact that the seeds imported from the Orient will not germinate readily, and practically all of the hemp grown in this country is grown from domestic grown seed, because of the low germination in foreign seeds.

Mr. McCormack: As I understand it, there is nothing in the bill that would prevent the importation of seed by crushers.

Mr. Lozier: No.

Mr. McCormack: If the crushers import seed to produce oil, it is only logical that they might produce it from seeds grown in this country, and, therefore, they might have to be under some supervision.

Mr. Lozier: The point I make is that if you turn all of the hemp seed grown in this country over to persons who have the marihuana habit, they would not be able to satisfy that habit or appetite, and neither could the chemist or compounders of the drug divide that element in either the seed or oil in such form as to satisfy even the slightest passion or appetite for this drug. In other words, the point I make is that it is not necessary----;

Mr. Vinson: Mr. Lozier, we know you, we love you, and we respect your ability as an advocate. We know that you are a real lawyer.

Mr. Lozier: I thank you for that, but I think you are over-appraising my abilities.

Mr. Vinson: Anybody who has you representing him will be well represented. Now, you spoke of the suppression of this crushing industry for which you are speaking: Suppose you, put your finger on the language in this bill that would bring about the supervision to which you object.

Mr. Lozier: Section 6, page 7, of the bill provides that--

It shall be unlawful for any person, whether or not required to pay a special tax and register under section 2, to transfer marihuana, except in pursuance of a written order of the person to whom such marihuana is transferred, on a form to be issued in blank for that purpose by the Secretary.

Subject to such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe.

Then, on page 9, subsection 5, there is a reference-----

to a transfer of paints or varnishes of which marihuana is an ingredient.

Mr. Vinson: That excepts it from the operation of the bill.

Mr. Lozier: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: You are not objecting to that.

Mr. Lozier: Not to the exception----

Mr. Vinson: You favor that.

Mr. Lozier: Yes, sir.

Mr. Buck: Is it your objection that this exception must be subject to regulation by the Secretary?

Mr. Lozier: Yes; that is one reason.

Mr. Vinson: I have gotten down to the point of finding out what you are objecting to. The exception you refer to is an exception in your favor. Now, what supervisory functions are you objecting to?

Mr. Lozier: I am objecting to, first, with reference to the supervision---

Mr. Vinson: (interposing). The supervision of what?

Mr. Lozier: Of the industry by requiring reports, and by a system of espionage.

Mr. Vinson: Where is that in the bill?

Mr. Lozier: They are required to make reports. The books of the crushers would be subject to inspection, which includes authority to oversee the activities of the industry. Under this bill, the Government has a right to go into the factories and offices, and make investigations.

Mr. Vinson: It seems to me that you are so certain that the activities of your people are not connected, directly or indirectly, with the use of this marihuana as a drug that you would not hesitate to permit an investigation, if an investigation is called for under this bill, in order to kill this traffic. I know that your people are not knowingly a part or parcel of the traffic. I know that from what you say. If that is not the case, of course, they ought to come under the law, and if that is the case, they will not be hurt.

Mr. Lozier: I will answer that in this way, that there is no more reason for supervision of the hemp-seed crushing industry under this bill than there is for the supervision of the milling of rye, wheat, or any other grain from which alcohol may be extracted.

Mr. Vinson: Cannot marihuana be grown from seeds that come into the possession of your crushers?

Mr. Lozier: Yes, sir; it might be, but the germination of those seeds is practically nil.

Mr. Vinson: But you admit that this plant can be grown from seed coming into the possession of your people, and, that being true, do you think it proper to provide for the exercise of the Government's function to do that which will prevent the further propagation of this plant in this country?

Mr. Lozier: I might answer that in this way, by saying that these people buy cargoes. They buy this product by shiploads, by trainloads, and by carloads. They manufacture this oil and sell it in tank cars. They have been engaged in this business for years, and never until the last 3 weeks was any suggestion made that they were handling a commodity that was carrying a deleterious principle that was contributing to the delinquency of the people of the United States.

Mr. Vinson: Perhaps the committee in a way might be subjected to criticism for not acting on the matter before; but it is fair to State it was not called to our attention; if you admit that this marihuana is a menace to the youth as well as the adult citizenship of this country, do you not recognize the power of the Federal Government to operate on that drug?

Mr. Lozier: Yes.

Mr. Vinson: If you recognize that, do you not also recognize in the Government the power and the right to prevent the illicit growth of that plant?

Mr. Lozier: I am objecting to the method.

Mr. Vinson: Do you not recognize the power of Congress to do that?

Mr. Lozier: Yes; the Government has that absolute power, but the question is whether or not the Government should exercise it in this way.

Mr. Vinson: I think that your people ought to hasten to join hands with the Federal Government to prevent the condition obtaining in this country that my good friend has depicted as existing in oriental countries.

Mr. Lozier: If it will bring about that result, well and good, but, as you know, it has been admitted here, and the books show it, that this plant exists all over this Nation, and the question is how far this bill shall go. If it be true that Cannabis sativa. is one species, and that there are other species, or plants of a different genus or family , containing this deleterious principle, then, by the limitation in section 1, you have made it impossible to regulate or supervise the deleterious products that come from those other species. I am not very familiar with botany, but there is the family, the genus, and the species. this bill is directed only to one species, and the botanists or authorities are not agreed as to whether the Cannabis sativa. Americana is the same species as Cannabis sativa. L--the L referring to Linne, the Swedish botanist who identified and described this plant and its products.

Mr. Cooper: While this is all very interesting, and while I appreciate your exhaustive discussion of the subject, yet, in order to be helpful to me, I would like for you to go back to the bill itself. I would be glad to have you analyze the bill we have under consideration. In your splendid statement you have referred to section 6, and have also, discussed paragraph 5 on page 9. Paragraph 5 is an exception that is included in section 6.

Mr. Lozier: Yes.

Mr. Cooper: Now, from that point, will you be kind enough to proceed and point out to the committee the exact language in the bill which you think would make the operation of it unfair to your industry?

Mr. Cullen: If you will suspend for a moment, let me say the House is now in session. We have dispensed with Calendar Wednesday, and will take up the second deficiency bill, in which many Members are interested. I am wondering if we should not adjourn at this point to meet again tomorrow morning.

Mr. Cooper: I agree to that suggestion.

Mr. Lozier: If you will allow me one moment before adjournment, I will call your attention to paragraph 6, page 9, which is an exception that permits the crusher to sell marihuana to the manufacturer or compounder for use by the vendee as a material in the manufacture of, or to be prepared by him as a component of paint or varnish. Now, under that provision, you could not sell the cake or meal to farmers or the oil to makers of soap or linoleum.

Mr. Cullen: The committee will now stand adjourned until 10:30 tomorrow morning, at which time we will continue hearing the testimony of witnesses in opposition to the bill.

(Thereupon, at 12 noon, the committee adjourned to meet tomorrow, Thursday, Apr. 29, 1937, at 10:30 A.M.)

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page 67

TAXATION OF MARIHUANA

THURSDAY, APRIL 29 1937

House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means,
Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10:30 a.m., Hon. Robert L. Doughton (chairman) presiding.

The Chairman: The committee will be in order.

This is a continuation of the hearing on the bill H.R. 6385. After the adjournment of the committee in yesterday, I suggested to Mr. Hester, who has been representing the Treasury Department in the presentation of this bill, that he have a conference with some of those who have appeared in opposition to certain provisions of the bill to see if it were possible to iron out the differences and reach an agreement as to the points on which they were in disagreement.

If Mr. Hester is present we will receive his report.

Do you have something to report Mr. Hester?

FURTHER STATEMENT OF CLINTON M. HESTER, ASSISTANT COUNSEL, TREASURY DEPARTMENT

Mr. Hester: Yes, Mr. Chairman; I have. Pursuant to your request yesterday afternoon we conferred with Judge Lozier and Mr. Williamson, and also with Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Gordon, and Mr. Conners, and as a result of our conference, those gentlemen, who represent importers of the seeds and those who crush the seeds for the purpose of making oil and using the residue of the seeds for making meal and cake, have expressed the view that they are willing to pay the occupational tax which is provided in this bill if the definition of marihuana is amended so as to eliminate oil made from the seeds, and the meal and cake which are made from the seeds, as well as any compounds or manufactures of either oil, meal, or cake.

The position they take is that under the bill at the present time those who sell oil for the manufacture of varnish and paints would have to pay the occupational tax, even though they would not have to pay the transfer tax or make the transfers on the order forms. They also take the position that under the bill, as now drawn, they could not sell this residue from the seeds, or the meal and cake, to cattlemen, because of the fact that the cattlemen could not register under the bill, and that, therefore, they would have to pay a prohibitive tax.

I will say this, that I have never come up here in connection with any legislation where the Ways and Means Committee has not found it necessary to make some changes. We always expect that when we appear before the Ways and Means Committee, because of the fine consideration the committee gives to all legislation. If the committee should ask the Secretary of the Treasury for his recommendation with respect to the proposals made by these gentlemen representing this legitimate industry, I will say very frankly to the Secretary that I see no objection to amending the definition of marihuana so as to eliminate oil, meal, cake, and the manufactured compounds of those materials.

The Chairman: Why not make that request now, and later on we can have the report of the Secretary?

Mr. Hester: That is agreeable to us.

The Chairman: That will save time.

Mr. Reed: Are these the only objections that have been raised so far, or are these the only requests that have been made to amend the bill?

The Chairman: The chairman was not here yesterday, but I understand there is one more witness to appear in opposition to the bill.

Mr. Reed: I was wondering whether this agreement would clear the atmosphere so we could go ahead, or whether there are other witnesses who may raise other points in opposition to the bill. Has there been any indication of that?

The Chairman: My understanding is that this clear the atmosphere so far as this provision of the bill is concerned. There may be opposition to other provisions in the bill. However, this agreement will clear the atmosphere considerably.

Mr. Reed: Have you had notice of any other opposition to the bill?

The Chairman: I am informed that the American Medical Association has a representative here to make some statement in regard to the bill, and, perhaps, in opposition to certain features of it. I am not informed as to the particulars of their position.

Mr. Buck: I was going to ask Mr. Hester whether he has prepared any suggested amendments to the bill.

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir. There was one other point raised that I omitted to State. I refer you to page 4 of the bill, line 19. These gentlemen point out that marihuana is shipped in railroad cars at times, and that under the language of the bill, commencing in line 19, page 4, the Secretary of the Treasury would require an exact inventory. They say that even on account of wind a bushel or two might be removed from a railroad car. We have considered the matter overnight, and we feel that their objection is meritorious. Therefore, it is agreeable to us to strike out that entire sentence, commencing in line 19, page 4, with the words, "At the time of such registry." It will be agreeable to us to strike out that entire sentence.

Mr. Reed: You would strike out the whole sentence.

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir.

Section 10 (a), page 13, gives us ample authority to prescribe the regulations requiring reasonable inventories. That section reads as follows:

Every person liable to any tax imposed by this act shall keep such books and records, render under oath such statements, make such returns, and comply with such rules and regulations as the Secretary may from time to time prescribe.

That will give us ample authority.

I have a copy of the amendments here, which are agreeable to these gentlemen. Do you want me to read them?

Mr. Cooper: Of course, we will take up the question of amendments in executive session.

Mr. Hester: Then, I will insert them in the record.

The Chairman: You may hand them to the reporter for insertion in the record.

(Said amendments are as follows:)

Amendments To H.R. 6358

I
Hempseed oil, hempseed cake, hempseed meal, and all products manufactured from the above may be eliminated from the purview of the bill by amending section 1 (b), which contains the definition of marihuana, to read as follows:

The term :"marihuana" includes all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa. L., whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of such plant; and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds or resin; but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant, oil or cake made from seeds, and any compound manufacture, salt derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks, oil or cake.

II
In order to render the remainder of the bill consistent with this amendment, section 3 (c) should be eliminated from the bill. This section provides that the occupational excise tax and registry provisions of the bill shall not apply to dealers in paints and varnishes. Since the definition of marihuana, as above amended, would not include paints and varnishes, this section is no longer necessary.

III
Section 6 (b) (5) and (6) may be eliminated from the bill because they merely except from the transfer tax and order-form provisions of the bill a transfer of paints or varnishes, of which marihuana is an ingredient, and a transfer of seeds or oil to a manufacturer of paint. since paints, varnishes, and hempseed oil, under the definition as amended, will not be included within the term "marihuana", it is no longer necessary to exempt these products from the transfer tax.

IV
Since hempseeds will, even under the amended definition, be subject to the provisions of the bill, it is necessary to amend section 6 (b) (6), which exempts from the transfer tax and order form provisions a transfer of seeds for the further production of the plant or for use in the manufacture of oil, so as to permit a transfer of seeds for the manufacture of hempseed cake and meal. That section is, therefore, amended to read as follows:

"To a transfer of any seeds of the plant Cannabis sativa. to a person, registered as a producer under section 2, for use by such person for the further production of such plant, or to a person registered under section 2 as a manufacturer, importer, or compounder, for use by such person for the manufacture of seed oil, seed cake, or any compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such oil or meal."

V
Section 2 (d) provides at the time of registry and payment of the occupational tax a taxpayer must file an inventory of the exact amount of marihuana on hand. Manufacturers of hempseed oil, cake, and meal will be occupational taxpayers, and, as such, would have to file an inventory of the exact amount of seeds on hand at the time of registry. Representatives of industry State that it would be very difficult for them to file such an inventory due to the required exactness. This difficulty might be eliminated without jeopardizing the enforcement of the measure by striking out the second sentence of section 2 (d) which requires the inventory. With that sentence eliminated the Secretary of the Treasury could make such inventory requirements as are appropriate to the particular case under section 10 (a) of the bill which gives the Secretary authority to require taxpayers under the act to render under oath statements, make returns, and comply with rules and regulation.

Mr. Lamneck: Are there any harmful ingredients in the so-called meal?

Mr. Hester: I would rather have Dr. Wollner answer that.

Dr. Wollner: There are not.

Mr. Hester: Dr. Woolner, the consulting chemist in the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, says there are not.

Mr. Lamneck: I would like to inquire whether all importation of hempseed are of this variety, or whether there are other varieties that are not harmful.

Mr. Hester: My understanding is that all hempseeds contain marihuana unless the liquid has been completely dried out of the seed.

Mr. Lamneck: The testimony the other day showed that there was a great amount of these seeds imported, and that all of them contained these harmful ingredients we are talking about.

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir; that is right. I want to make this clear: Am I correct, Mr. Wollner, in saying that when the seeds are dry marihuana is not contained in them?

Dr. Wollner: That is right.

Mr. Hester: As I see it, the enforcement problem is to see that the seeds cannot get out of the hands of the importers for use in growing marihuana in this country.

Mr. Buck: Your proposed amendments, as I understand it, will only permit the use of hulls or the seeds after they have been cracked or crushed so they cannot be used for germination purposes?

Mr. Hester: That is right.

The Chairman: Judge Lozier, do you wish to make a further statement?

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF HON. RALPH F. LOZIER, GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF OILSEED PRODUCTS

Mr. Lozier: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee. I will State, in corroboration of the statement made by Mr. Hester, that we had a conference last evening, and at that time we agreed upon some of these changes. At that time the visitorial powers of the Department with reference to oil had not been removed from the bill, and it was our contention that if any supervision or visitorial powers were given the Department over oil and cake after the crushing process, it would taint and place under suspicion all oil and cake products, subject them to possible seizure, and the manufacturers or dealers to prosecution, and no linoleum, soap, or paint manufacturer would buy the oil and no farmer would buy the cake for fear it might be found that a few twigs, leaves, or portions of the flowering tops were not removed from the seeds before crushing.

Mr. Hester, representing the Department, exercising the good judgement that he always shows, has agreed to amend the definition of marihuana so as to eliminate the oil, oil cake, and oil meal entirely. That will prevent any seizures of tanks cars and the imposition of a tax on paint, soap, and linoleum manufacturers, should anyone raise any question as to the seed containing parts of the tops, twigs, or leaves of the plant. The definition drawn by Mr. Hester is satisfactory to us, and the other amendments are also satisfactory to the crushers or the mills engaged in the production of hempseed oil.

As I said in my statement yesterday, my clients recognize the wisdom of very severe and stringent regulatory control over marihuana, insofar as it may be used for deleterious purposes. The only point we want to bring before the committee is that the legislation be made reasonable, and that it may not travel into unexplored regions and embody provisions inimical to a great industry and which would no promote the real object of the bill.

Speaking for 15 or 20 companies engaged in crushing hempseed oil, represented by the National Institute of Oilseed Products, I will say to the committee that the amendments are satisfactory. We recognize the fact that you will pass upon amendments without regard to any agreements or understanding we may have; but if the amendments are satisfactory to the committee, they are entirely satisfactory to the crushers. Judge Williamson, who is vice president and general counsel of the El Dorado Oil Works, which is the oldest oil-crushing establishment on the Pacific coast, is present, and I will say that we see no objection to the passage of the measure in its substantive essence with the amendments that Mr. Hester has approved.

The Chairman: The Chair would like to state that he is very much gratified to know that an understanding has been reached between the interests that Judge Lozier represents and the Treasury Department. I regret that I was unable to be here yesterday because of another pressing appointment with General Hines. We are glad to have had a statement by Judge Lozier, a former able and diligent Member of the House, and I believe I voice the sentiment of each member of the committee who has served with Judge Lozier when I say that he would not appear before this or any other committee on behalf of any client on any proposition that he could not conscientiously and fully justify.

Mr. Lozier: I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Fuller: I would like to ask Judge Lozier a question, because I was not here when the other gentleman made his statement. As I understand this agreement, you have agreed upon an amendment whereby you exempt from the operation of the bill all dealers who handle oil from the seed.

Mr. Lozier: The definition includes every particle of the marihuana plant, or the Cannabis sativa. L. plant, including the mature fruitage of the seed, up to the time the seeds are pressed and the oil or cake is extracted. At that point the definition ends, and the Government would have no supervision whatsoever over the oil, cake, or meal in the channels of trade and commerce.

Mr. Fuller: The other point I want to reach is this: Would Mr. Williamson, for instance, who imports these seeds for the purpose of obtaining oil by crushing them, be exempted entirely from all regulations under these amendments?

Mr. Lozier: No; this bill as originally framed, and in the form to which we have agreed, brings the importer, the manufacturer, the processor, and the compounder under the regulatory provisions of the bill up to the point where the seed ceases to be seed and become either cake or oil. The crushers must register, they must pay the occupational tax, and make their reports from time to time, as required by the Treasury Department.

Mr. Fuller: In order that they may know where the seed goes.

Mr. Lozier: Yes.

Now, may I say this, that the gentlemen whom I represent developed the hempseed-oil industry at a time when there was a great need for drying oils. We only produced from one-third to one-half the drying oils used in this country, and the need for drying oils became more acute because of the constantly declining production of flax in this country. The linoleum industry, the paint industry, and the varnish and lacquer industry, as well as the soap industry, and the building industry are looking for means which will enable them to have more generous supplies of these drying oils. They have no objection whatever to any regulation which Congress sees fit to make which will have for its object, or will accomplish, the ultimate and paramount proposal embodied in this bill; but we do think the bill originally went entirely too far.

I want to say in justice to Mr. Hester that we found him to be very reasonable. We found that he had an open mind, and we found his attitude receptive, and with a disposition to be fair.

So far as my clients are concerned, I am very much gratified that this major objection has been eliminated, or will be provided the suggested compromise meets the approval of the ways and Means Committee.

I thank you.

The Chairman: The House is meeting at 11 o'clock today, and we will have to adjourn shortly. Are there any witnesses who desire to be heard tomorrow?

Mr. McDonald: My name is M.Q. MacDonald [sic], and I am general counsel of the National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association.

We concur in what Judge Lozier has said, and the agreement, or tentative agreement, is entirely satisfactory to us. I would like to submit a statement for the record, if that is agreeable to the committee.

The Chairman: That will be entirely agreeable.

Dr. Woodward: Mr. Chairman, I am the legislative counsel of the American Medical Association, and would like very much to be heard. If the committee prefers, I will file a brief if I am given reasonable time for that purpose.

Mr. Cooper: Would you prefer to be heard by the committee, Doctor?

Dr. Woodward: I would prefer to be heard by the committee.

The Chairman: In view of the organization he represents, I think he should be heard by the committee.

Mr. Scarlett: Mr. Chairman, my name is Raymond G. Scarlett, representing William G. Scarlett &;Co., seed merchants of Baltimore. We represent the interest of the feed manufacturers on this subject, which is a little different angle from that which has been presented heretofore. We would like to be heard at some time.

The Chairman: We will ask you to be here tomorrow morning.

Mr. Scarlett: I'll be present.

The Chairman: We will now adjourn to meet tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.

(Thereupon the committee adjourned, to meet tomorrow, Friday, Apr. 30, 1937, at 10 a.m.)

TAXATION OF MARIHUANA
_______________________
FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1937

House of Representatives,
Committee on Ways and Means
Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10 a.m., Hon Robert L. Doughton (chairman) presiding.

The Chairman: The committee will be in order. Yesterday the chairman was informed there was some disagreement in connection with some provisions of the bill, by people engaged in the processing of seed or some objection to parts of the bill we have under consideration.

The chairman suggested to Mr. Hester that he have a conference with the people representing that industry to see if it was possible to reach an agreement and remove the objection they had by some change or modification of the bill, but which would warrant them in withdrawing their objection.

Mr. Hester, has there been any development in that direction or any progress made?

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF CLINTON M. HESTER, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL, OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir. We had an extended conference with these gentlemen yesterday, and they are both here this morning, and I think they would like to be heard for a moment.

The Chairman: If they will come forward, we will be glad to hear any statement they care to make.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND G. SCARLETT, REPRESENTING WILLIAM G. SCARLETT &;CO., BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. Scarlett: Mr. Chairman. I might say there are only two representatives of the seed industry here today, because it so happens that our trade association, which represents 90 percent of the seed dealers in the country, is now in session in chicago, and one of the things in which they are engaged is the drafting of suggestions for provisions for the Federal regulation of seed, and our counsel could not be here for that reason.

We handle a considerable quantity of hempseed annually for use in pigeon feeds. That is a necessary ingredient in pigeon feed because it contains an oil substance that is a valuable ingredient of pigeon feed, and we have not been able to find any seed that will take its place.

If you substitute anything for the hemp, it has a tendency to change the character of the squabs produced; and if we were deprived of the use of hempseed, it would affect all of the pigeon producers in the United States, of which I understand there are upwards of 40,000.

The Chairman: Does that seed have the same effect on pigeons as the drug has on individuals?

Mr. Scarlett: I have never noticed it. It has a tendency to bring back the feathers and improve the birds.

We are not interested in spreading marihuana, or anything like that. We do not want to be drug peddlers.

But it has occurred to us that if we could sterilize the seed there would be no possibility of the plant being produced from the seeds that the pigeons might throw on the ground.

The Chairman: If you were permitted to use this seed for that purpose, and it was sterilized, would that eliminate your objection?

Mr. Scarlett: Yes, sir, that is the agreement we have reached with the Treasury representatives of with Mr. Hester's committee.

Mr. Thompson: What is the process of sterilization?

Mr. Scarlett: The germination in the seed can be killed by the application of heat and moisture.

Mr. Thompson: By the use of steam?

Mr. Scarlett: They have regular bins in which they put it and they run temperatures up to a certain number of degrees and leave the seed there for a certain period, and that kills all of the germinative powers in the seed.

The Chairman: By heating it?

Mr. Scarlett: Yes, sir. There has been an amendment proposed to section 1 (b) by excluding from the definition of marihuana sterilized seed which is incapable of germination, so that section 1 (b), as so amended, would read as follows:

The term "marihuana" includes all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa. L., whether growing or not: the seeds thereof: the resin extracted from any part of such plant: and every compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such plant, its seeds or resin: but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant, oil, or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks, oil, or cake, and the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.

To that exception we agree.

The Chairman: Suppose it should develop that in your efforts to sterilize the seed you should not be successful, and that the same conditions existed in the seed as exist in its present form, and that those conditions would continue, then would you object to legislation necessary to protect the people from the deleterious effects of this drug?

Mr. Scarlett: No, sir; but that could be very easily accomplished, because at the present time the seed industry is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. When we import any seed, such as clover, for instance, the Federal law provides that the imported seed must be in such a condition that it will keep out injurious weeds, so we will not get any seed that will produce this plant.

The Chairman: Did you discuss with Mr. Hester the question as to what would be the procedure in the event experience should demonstrate that you could not be successful in what you propose to do?

Mr. Scarlett: If we cannot prove that the seed is sterilized, after the Treasury representatives have taken tests of the seed, they do not have to release it.

We are willing to leave the seed under their jurisdiction until it can be proved to their satisfaction that it has been sterilized.

Mr. Cooper: I am sure you appreciate the fact that this is a highly technical phase of the question that you are discussing; that is true is it not? The treatment of seed and the elimination of injurious elements that may appear there is rather technical in its nature is it not?

Mr. Scarlett: We do not consider it very technical, because it is an accepted fact that the germination quality would be destroyed by heat.

Mr. Cooper: It is technical in that it requires expert treatment in handling, does it not?

Mr. Scarlett: If you take a sample seed and put it on your window sill or over your radiator and leave it there for any length of time, the germinative qualities will be killed.

Mr. Cooper: That is all right, but it takes somebody who knows his business to know that, does it not? I would not know how to do it.

Mr. Scarlett: All you have to do is to put a container with seed in it on the radiator and leave it there for a while and the germinative qualities will be killed.

Mr. Cooper: It requires some technical knowledge and experience to give it proper treatment, does it not?

Mr. Scarlett: It requires the application of heat. It does not require any technical knowledge to apply the heat.

Mr. cooper: But it takes somebody who knows his business, and who knows something about seed and plants to know what treatment is required, does it not?

Mr. Scarlett: Yes, sir.

Mr. Cooper: That is what I am getting at.

In view of the fact that there is a technical element involved, do you not think it would be helpful if you would advise with the officials of the Government who have training and knowledge in reference to this subject to see whether a proposal such as you have made can be worked out?

Mr. Scarlett: I have done so. I talked with Mr. Edgar Brown of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and he informed me that it can be done.

Mr. Cooper: Have you conferred with Mr. Hester and other representatives of the Treasury Department here?

Mr. Scarlett: We have, sir.

The Chairman: Before you came in, Mr. cooper, I Stated that I had requested Mr. Hester yesterday to have a conference with these other gentlemen representing the industry, to see whether or not they could reach an agreement, and he advised me that they had done so. This gentleman is explaining the proposed amendment, and Mr. Hester will later explain the nature of the agreement that they reached and the amendment that is proposed.

Mr. Disney: What is the relation between hempseed and marihuana?

Mr. Scarlett: Until Monday of this week we did not know there was any connection between the two. When this bill came out and we saw that it was called a bill to impose an occupational excise tax upon dealers in marihuana we paid no attention to it. Nobody in the seed trade refers to hempseed as marihuana.

Hempseed is a harmless ingredient used for many years in the seed trade. they say that hemp and marihuana are one and the same thing, but it was not until Monday that we knew they were.

Mr. Disney: That is as far as the trade is concerned?

Mr. Scarlett: Yes, sir. The trade at large do not know that this bill under consideration contains any provision affecting them, because the title of the bill would give them no knowledge that it was hempseed that was under discussion.

Mr. Reed: I want to get it clearly in my mind that this marihuana and the ordinary hemp that we hear about are the same thing. The plant is the same?

Mr. Scarlett: Yes, sir.

Mr. Reed: There is no difference?

Mr. Scarlett: No, sir; that is, to my knowledge.

Mr. Reed: Can anybody answer that question?

Mr. Hester: That is right.

Mr. Disney: Do you mean field hemp?

Mr. Reed: Yes; I am talking about field hemp. I want to get that clear.

The Chairman: Is not one a manufactured product and the other the substance from which it is made? The hempseed is the substance from which the marihuana is produced, is it not?

Mr. Scarlett: No, sir; marihuana is produced from the resin of the female flowers or blossoms.

The Chairman: It comes from hempseed?

Mr. Scarlett: Yes, sir; but in India when they produce marihuana, they are very careful to go through the fields and pick out the male plant, so that they will not fertilize the female plant.

The Chairman: If you had no hemp weed, you would have no marihuana, would you?

Mr. Scarlett: That is correct; that is the reason I said we would sterilize the seed.

Mr. Reed: Several people have talked to me about marihuana and they have impressed me with the fact, that they are different plants. I think that ought to be cleared up in the public mind, so that we may know we are dealing with hemp. It appears that it is grown in back yards, but I suppose a good many people have the idea that it is some sort of new species of plant in this country.

Mr. Disney: Down in our part of the country I understand marihuana grows everywhere, just as an ordinary weed. I would like to get a clear understanding on that.

Mr. Reed: In other words, it is hemp growing wild, is it not?

Mr. Disney: I do not know.

Mr. Reed: There seems to be quite a good deal of confusion about it, and the newspapers are publishing stories about it, and we might as well clear up that situation and say that we are not dealing with the ordinary hemp plant, wild or cultivated, if that is right.

Mr. Hester: That is right.

The Chairman: Is there any one else who desires to be heard?

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH B. HERTZFIELD, MANAGER, FEED DEPARTMENT, THE PHILADELPHIA SEED CO. , PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Mr. Hertzfield: Mr. Chairman, I would like to be heard briefly.

The Chairman: Will you give your full name to the reporter and state whom you represent?

Mr. Hertzfield: My name is Joseph B. Hertzfield; I am manager of the feed department of the philadelphia Seed Co., of Philadelphia, Pa.

I want to say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that our firm is heartily in sympathy with the aims and purposes of this bill, and we have no desire to become parties to spreading this drug around the country.

We have been manufacturers of feeds and mixed birdseeds for many years, and in those mixtures hempseed is a very important item.

Hempseed us very beneficial because it adds the proper oil to the mixture of and promotes the growth of feathers, and it is also a general vitalizer. Birds lose their feathers and hempseed aids considerably in restoring the bird's vitality quickly. Otherwise there is a delay of two or three months before the bird gets back into condition, and the hempseed helps to accomplish that purpose.

I want to second what Mr. Scarlett has just said, and to express our willingness to have the seed sterilized so that it cannot be grown and thus cause any harm.

This agreement which has been referred to, that we reached yesterday with Mr. Hester, is very satisfactory to us, and I would like to ask favorable consideration of the committee for that agreement.

Mr. Crowther: Would the sterilization which would prevent the germination remove such of the drug as exists in the cull or the outside cover of the seed which is now sometimes used?

Mr. Hertzfield: I cannot answer that. We have seen evidence by eminent authorities that there is not any of the drug in the seed.

Mr. Crowther: Someone testified that there are some particles of the resin on the outside shell of the seed.

Mr. Hertzfield: Is that when the seed is mature?

Mr. Crowther: I understand so.

Mr. Hertzfield: I have never heard of anybody smoking the seed.

Mr. Crowther: I thought if there were some particles of resin on the outside of the seed it might have the same effect as smoking.

Mr. Hertzfield: In one of these exhibits you have here there is some seed that has formed but is not matured, and that is possible. The type of seed that we use is this seed here [indicating exhibit]. That is this brown seed dried and matured.

Mr. Crowther: You think there is no likelihood of it being anything of that kind?

Mr. Hertzfield: I doubt it.

The Chairman: When it comes to your possession is the shell removed?

Mr. Hertzfield: It is just like that brown seed. That is the way we use it. That is matured and dry seed.

The Chairman: Is there any of the residue on the seed when it comes into your possession?

Mr. Hertzfield: No; that is gone. When this seed is matured and dry we grind the shell off in the threshing operation.

I had occasion to write to the Bureau of Plant Industry in the Department of Agriculture about this in 1935, and under date of October 4, 1935, I had a communication from F.D. Richey in which he said:

The female inflorescence of the plant possesses physiological properties that are the basis of abuse as a potent drug. The seed is considered to be devoid of such properties.

It has been used for such purposes for years, and I have never heard of any ill effects. On the contrary, it seems to be extremely beneficial.

We would like to have the privilege of having the use of that seed until it is definitely proven that the sterilized hempseed should not be used.

Mr. Disney: As I Stated a while ago, out in our country marihuana is known as an ordinary weed that grows in back yards, and in any place where plants will grow.

It is not the ordinary field hemp that is used for fibers?

Mr. Hester: It is the ordinary field hemp growing wild, or at least without the extensive cultivation necessary to provide good fiber. The committee may have been confused because we have used the term marihuana in this bill.

The reason for that is this. This is the hemp drug, commonly known in Mexico and in the United States as marihuana. It is just a colloquial term in Mexico, as I understand it, and means the flowering tops and leaves of the hemp plant, which may be eaten or smoked. We could not make Cannabis sativa. L., the hemp plant, the subject of the taxes contained in this bill because it was not intended to tax the whole plant, but merely the parts of the plant which contain the drug. The parts of the plant which contain the drug are commonly known as marihuana, so taxes were imposed upon "marihuana."

In addition I might say that some people say that the marihuana seed should be called fruit, because, botanically speaking, it is a fruit, not a seed. However, it is known commercially and commonly as a seed, and that is the reason we have used the term.

Mr. Disney: I notice that in section 1, at the beginning of the bill, in subdivision (c) it says that the producer is one--

who (1) plants, grows, cultivates, or in any way facilitates the natural growth of marihuana; (2) harvests and transfers or makes use of marihuana; or (3) fails to destroy marihuana within 10 days after notice that such marihuana is growing upon land under his control.

To what extent do you expect to go along that line, where it is an ordinary weed?

Mr. Hester: The person on whose land the plant was growing wild would be notified by the Treasury Department that he has this plant growing on his land, and if he did not destroy the weed, he would become a producer under the bill and subject to the tax. He would not be committing a crime if he failed to cut it and would merely have to pay a tax.

Mr. Lewis: Suppose he is not raising it for the market.

Mr. Hester: If a person cultivates it, he would be producing it; he would become a producer under the bill.

Mr. Lewis: Without raising it for the market?

Mr. Hester: That is right. That is the only way it can be handled, I believe. Since this plant will grow wild, a person might evade the occupational tax on producers by stating to the internal revenue agent that the plant was growing wild.

Mr. Lewis: You mean that if he goes out and digs it up as a weed?

Mr. Hester: No; if you have a farm and it is growing on your farm wild, and the Government agent sees it growing there, and they notify you what it is, then you are required to destroy that. If you do not, then you become a producer and subject to the occupational tax.

Mr. Lewis: How widely distributed is it as a weed?

Mr. Hester: Mr. Anslinger said it will grow in practically all the States wild.

The Chairman: I would like to know about the process of destroying it, if it grows wild on a man's farm. I have had considerable experience in trying to destroy weeds, and it requires a lot of expense. Who would defray the expense required in fighting and destroying that weed.

Mr. Hester: This is the thing to remember, that if he did not destroy he would simply become a producer under this bill and have to pay a small occupational tax, and the Government would know it is there. He does not have to destroy it if he does not want to, but if he does not, he pays a small occupational tax.

Mr. Lewis: How much?

Mr. Hester: $25 a year.

Mr. Reed: I know something about farming, although I am not familiar with the manner in which this plant spreads. I know that we have tried on our farms to keep out certain weeds, but could not do it because the expense is too great.

You will have a revolution on your hands if, as you say, this plant grows generally throughout the country and you try to charge the farmers a tax of $25, as you said.

Mr. Hester: Suppose the poppy from which you extract opium grew wild; you would have exactly the same situation. That is the only way in which it can be controlled.

Mr. Reed: I think that is the most serious question that has come up in connection with this bill.

Take, for instance wild carrots. I defy any farmer to eliminate them unless and until he summer-fallows the ground.

Mr. Hester: The purpose of this is not to put the producer to any expense where it grows wild, but to require him to notify the Government he has marihuana growing on his place. The way we do that is by putting on the occupational tax. Do you think farmers would be willing to cooperate with the Government in stamping out this marihuana by paying a small tax?

Mr. Reed: Do you imagine that all through our country where a farmer has, say, 25 acres, they are going to pay an occupational tax of $25?

Mr. Hester: You gentlemen here in congress, of course, can fix the occupational tax at any amount that you see fit. That is merely a suggestion.

Mr. Disney: I would like to know this: When I see these weeds growing as they do in our part of the country, I imagine there is enough marihuana growing in one back yard to enable a man to get on several hilarious drunks. I would like to know what happens when that weed is growing there.

Mr. Hester: The Government has to notify you under the bill.

Mr. Disney: I am trying to think of it and get some information in a practical way. Of course, I am in favor of the main purpose of the bill-- to stamp out the use of the drug.

Mr. Reed: I would go the limit to accomplish that purpose also; but you have a very serious problem here, if this grows wild as many weeds do.

Mr. Hester: Here is the situation. Most of you gentlemen are lawyers, and you know you have to have an occupational tax to have a revenue bill. You would have to impose some kind of an occupational tax on a farmer. What the amount of the occupational tax will be is entirely a matter for the committee to decide.

We only require them to notify the Government.

Mr. Disney: This is just a start, and it ought to be a good start. But are you not going pretty far when you make a man a producer when he innocently grows wild marihuana on his land?

Mr. Hester: If you do not take wild marihuana into consideration, you cannot control this at all. That is all this does.

If I were an inspector and I came to you, and I knew where the marihuana was, and told you had it growing on your place, you might say, "I am not going to destroy it; that is very expensive. But I will pay a small occupational tax." That is when the Government knows it is growing on your place.

Mr. Reed: The they will destroy it?

Mr. Hester: Congress has made appropriations to the Department of Agriculture to permit the inspectors of that Department to go throughout the country and destroy plants which are dangerous to farmers because they produce plant diseases. If you can suggest some substitute, we will be very glad to have it.

Mr. Disney: I do not know about that.

Mr. Reed: I do not want to weaken this bill; I want to help you to carry out its purpose in every possible way.

Mr. Disney: I do not want to weaken it, either.

Mr. Reed: But I can see a lot of trouble unless this is properly worked out, because if you are going to start on a program of exterminating some weed, a weed that grows generally throughout the United States, you are undertaking a program that will be difficult and expensive.

Mr. Hester: In 1914 the Harrison Narcotic Act provided for doing the same thing, which included the word "producer", and the only thing is that it so happens poppies cannot be grown in the United States.

Mr. Reed: That is quite different.

Mr. Hester: It does not seem to me to be an undue hardship to put a small occupational tax on a person who has this growing wild on his land. The Government could get no information whatsoever from him otherwise. It is the only way the Government could get any information as to where this is growing wild.

Mr. Reed: But the next step is to destroy this weed?

Mr. Hester: Not necessarily to destroy it, but so that the Government will know where it is. There is no provision in the bill that requires them to destroy it. It says to the farmer, if you do not destroy it within 10 days, you will have to qualify as a producer and pay a small occupational tax.

Mr. Reed: What is the Government going to do then; put a man there to watch it?

Mr. Hester: No.

Mr. Reed: How will it stamp it out?

Mr. Hester: In the final analysis, if the man, the farmer, does not want to pay the small occupational tax, he will have to destroy it himself, or Congress will have to make an appropriation for the Department of Agriculture which will permit them to send people throughout the country to stamp it out.

Mr. Crowther: they could make them cut it down before it reaches the flowering stage, and that would do it, would it not?

Mr. Hester: Yes; that is right. We are proceeding with a new thing, and it is a serious menace. They would probably do it voluntarily; we cannot require them to do it unless we have them pay a small occupational tax.

Mr. Reed: You are looking at it from the Government-bureau point of view, and I am looking at it from the practical farmer's side, with this weed spreading all over creation.

If this weed has spread so that it has become a menace, the farmer will have to hire men to go through his meadows and cut out this weed, and the expense will be greater than you realize.

Does this hemp spread as other weeds do?

Mr. Hester: Dr. Dewey is the botanist, and I would like to have him make a statement in reference to that.

Mr. Reed: I want to get at the bottom of this thing before we get into a lot of trouble.

Mr. Fuller: Do you know whether or not just cutting out this weed will kill it?

Dr. Dewey: I think it can be killed easily. It is, in fact, a plant growing only from seeds, and can be exterminated once and for all by merely cutting it down before it goes to seed.

Mr. Fuller: If the seed is on the ground, it may be covered up and may keep covered up for years.

Dr. Dewey: Of course, it is all introduced from the type that is distributed from birds, and the birdseed does come up year after year from self-sown seed, but the type that is grown for fiber production does not.

For more than 35 of the years that I was working on these things I was working on the fibers.

Mr. Fuller: You do not mean to convey the idea that one cutting with a sickle would eliminate it, do you, because, as I understand it, it grows in proximity to river banks and creeks.

Dr. Dewey: Ordinarily one cutting would eliminate it. There might be some seeds that would remain the next year. I have seen it growing year after year in the same place when it was not cut because no stock would eat it.

Mr. Fuller: Does it grow in wild land?

Dr. Dewey: No; it grows in open land, sometimes at the edge of the woods, but not in the woods.

Mr. Fuller: It grows around creeks and river banks?

Dr. Dewey: Yes; on open land and waste land.

Mr. Fuller: That would mean as a general rule that you could not cut it with a mowing machine.

Dr. Dewey: Ordinarily it is rarely in areas large enough where you could use a mowing machine to cut it.

The largest area that I ever saw it growing in was at the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where it grew year after year, near a railroad, and I think there was a quarter of an acre of ground there.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Hester, have you fully canvassed the proficiency of a scheme that will limit the penalties to instances where it is grown for market, or where it is picked for market?

Mr. Hester: You mean distinguishing between a producer so-called under the act as a man on whose land it grows wild, and one who cultivates it?

Mr. Lewis: Yes.

Mr. Hester: No; we have not made a distinction, but we will be glad to consider that.

Mr. Lewis: I wish you would because it seems to me you might draw a distinction like that. This plant might grow wild and some man might want to pick it for the market, and then a farmer would be on notice, and he would probably be asked to pay for it. In that instances the law applies. It is the marketing of it at last that determines it.

Mr. Vinson: But would you not have to inject the question of intent?

Mr. Hester: Here is the situation.

Mr. Vinson: The gravamen of the offense would be knowledge of the growth?

Mr. Hester: That is right.

Mr. Vinson: That is, if there are penalties, you generally use the word "willfully", and in many instances "knowingly", because it is the intent with which the thing is done that governs, it seems to me.

I am in thorough accord with any effort to clean the thing out, but I don not think it is as significant as it would seem.

Mr. Hester: The question of intent is not involved here.

Mr. Vinson: I am speaking of the situation when you go to convict somebody, where the question of intentionally producing a thing would be involved.

Mr. Hester: That is right. Here is the situation.

Mr. Buck: There is nothing in this bill that provides a penalty for knowingly producing anything.

Mr. Hester: No.

Mr. Buck: There is merely the failure to register that is involved.

Mr. Hester: Under this bill, if you grow this wild, it is the duty of the Government to notify you; and if you do not destroy it within a certain length of time after you are notified, then you are required to qualify as a producer and pay some small occupational tax. And the only reason for that is that that is the only way the Government can acquire information and know where it is growing wild.

Mr. Vinson: A person would have to have knowledge that he is growing it before he can be convicted of any crime or misdemeanor.

Mr. Hester: That is right. The bill requires the Government to notify him. UNtil he has such notice he is not subject to the producers' tax and, of course, couldn't be prosecuted for evading the tax.

Mr. Lewis: Does it seem to you gentlemen who have studied the subject with a view to eliminating the evil that the growth of this plant must be completely eliminated?

Mr. Hester: It will have to be under control in order to prevent evasion of the producers' tax.

Mr. Dingell: Mr. Hester, do you not believe that the average farmer would be willing to use a mowing machine or scythe if he thought that in that way or any way at all after a year or 2 years he could exterminate and kill the weed which kills people?

Mr. Hester: I would be amazed if they would not, but as Mr. Reed points out, the preponderant consideration there is not of money.

Mr. Dingell: I think that, perhaps, only a fractional part of the farmers would be unwilling to cooperate in this.

Mr. Hester: I think so.

Mr. Dingell: Wherever they assume a different attitude, and are unwilling to do this in the public interest, they should be forced to eliminate the weeds.

Mr. Hester: We do not even compel them to eliminate the weeds under this provision. If they fail to do that, they would have to pay this occupational tax, make reports and returns, and we would know from that where the weeds were.

Mr. Dingell: Of course, there are some people who rebel against the payment of just taxes, some who rebel against any law. There was a cow war out in Iowa where they had to call out the militia and force the farmers to submit their cattle to the tuberculin test. They were willing to sell infected milk to people in the cities and cared not about the danger to their customers.

The Chairman: You must know how difficult this work of extermination would be. Some people talk about taking mowing machines and destroying these weeds, but on some farms you could not use mowing machines for any such purpose because of the roughness of the ground and rocks. If they undertook to do it with scythes, on some large farms it would take hundreds of men. It would be an almost impossible undertaking to remove these weeds to the extent of exterminating them.

Dr. Dewey: I was in the Department of Agriculture from 1890 to 1935. During the first 10 years, my work was chiefly on weeds and how to kill them. The last 30 years I had charge of the work with fiber-producing plants like hemp. This work required travel in all parts of the country, and I learned to look for weeds from the car windows or wherever I found them.

Thousands of letters came to me asking about weeds and, so far as I can recall, there were only four asking about hemp as a weed and in these instances it was not a troublesome weed but merely a new plant that looked like a weed to the farmer who asked the question. Although I was looking for weeds and all plants that might be troublesome as weeds, I never found the hemp plant to be a really troublesome weed.

In one instance, it appeared in a crop of oats that had followed a hemp crop the previous season and the hemp had been permitted to become overripe so that the seeds fell off before the hemp was harvested. The plants were scattered through the oat field of about 5 or 6 acres, but one man could have easily pulled them all out in less than half a day. They did not come up the following year.

Hemp is an annual plant, growing only from the seeds. It does not have a perennial root or root stocks like Canada thistle or Johnson grass and therefore, it may be easily exterminated by cutting it before the seeds are produced. Furthermore, if the stalks are cut off, they do not send up branches from the stubble. Cutting but once, therefore, kills the plant.

When it grows as a weed, it does not produce many seeds, and it does not spread rapidly as do wild carrots, which Mr. Reed mentioned, and other really troublesome weeds. It grows as a weed along roadsides, railways, in waste lands, on overflowed lands along rivers and where seed from bird cages has been thrown out in back yards. It is almost invariably in good fertile soil and in the open-- never in woods or swamps. This weed type often reseeds itself and persists in the same place year after year provided it is not cut down or any of the plants disturbed. Stock do not eat the plants. As a weed, the plants are usually only a few in a place or at most a few square rods.

The largest plant of hemp known to me as a weed was in a waste land along the railway between St. Paul and Minneapolis. I watched this plant every year or two for a period of at least 10 or 15 years and it did not increase materially in size. There were possible about 15 square rods growing where the seeds could easily have scattered out, but there seemed to be no stragglers. These plants could have been easily cut down by one man in less than 2 hours.

If the plants are cut before they produce seeds, they would be easily exterminated. A few dormant seeds may come up the following season or even the second season, but the plants are usually so conspicuous as to be easily found and they are not abundant so as to require excessive work in cutting them. Hemp never persists as a weed in cultivated land. The weed type has nearly solid stalks, different from the hollow stalk of the fiber producing type. Seeds of the fiber type do not produce persistent weeds.

It is believed that if bird seeds are treated so that they will not germinate, the source of hemp as weeds will be eliminated. The extermination of the hemp as a weed would be very much less difficult than the extermination of the common barberry, which has been done to safeguard farmers against wheat rust or the extermination of wild currants to save the white pine trees from the white-pine blister rust. Both of those plants were widely distributed and, having perennial roots, they had to be dug out, while hemp has merely to be cut off. In each case, the efforts have been successful and the rust on wheat and on the white pines has decreased.

Mr. Crowther: Has there been any increase in the use of this marihuana drug during the last year or two, in cigarettes, or otherwise?

Mr. Hester: I will have to refer that question to Commissioner Anslinger.

Mr. Anslinger: There has been.

Mr. Crowther: According to a brief that has been submitted, as a rule the addict passes into a dreamy State, in which judgement is lost, the imagination runs rampant; he is subject to bizarre ideas, lacking in continuity, and losing all sense of the measurement of time and space. I was wondering if there was a very marked increase in the smoking of this drug in cigarettes last year, following the period of September and October.

Mr. Anslinger: It has been on the increase.

Mr. Crowther: Has it increased lately?

Mr. Anslinger: There has been a decided increase in the number of seizures, or the number of seizures in 1936 over the number in 1935.

Mr. Vinson: Would you say that a prolonged period of suffering over a period of several years would have anything to do with the forming of the habit?

Mr. Anslinger: No, sir. I might say, with respect to the question of the farmers destroying the weeds that we have found a number of instances where the weed was growing on property, and when we have called it to the attention of the property owners, we have found that they have not only gladly cooperated in destroying the weeds but they have destroyed them by burning with a view to getting rid of them entirely. We have never found a case where a property owner has not cooperated with us in getting rid of this destructive weed.

Mr. Hester: Just a moment ago some question was raised with reference to the sterilization of seed, and this is the situation there: There are two reasons for including seed-- first, because of their use in growing the weed, and second, because of the smoking of the seed. Mr. Dewey, who is the expert of the Department of Agriculture, does say that the sterilization of the seed would make it impossible to use them for growing purposes, but these gentlemen are not in a position to say that the sterilization of seed will likewise remove any marihuana from them. On the other hand, we are not in a position to say that sterilization will not remove the marihuana. It seems to us that the burden of proof is on the Government there, when we might injure a legitimate industry, to submit evidence to this committee that sterilization will not remove marihuana from the seed.

Mr. Lewis: How is the sterilization of the seed effected-- by heat?

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir; by the application of heat. Under the circumstances, we feel that we should submit to the Secretary of the Treasury the question as to whether the Treasury Department would object to the proposed amendment which will except from the definition of the term marihuana sterilized seeds, which have been made incapable of germination. If the Secretary has no objection, we will advise the committee. Then, if at some later date it develops from experience or chemical analysis that marihuana is still in the seeds after sterilization and that they are being smoked throughout the country, we might have to come before the committee again and propose an amendment which would strike out this language, and revert to the situation at the present time under the bill as it stands. We have discussed the matter with these gentlemen, and they are agreeable to that proposition if the Secretary has no objection and the committee approves.

The Chairman: In other words, you would test the practicability of that method.

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir.

Mr. Crowther: It would be like treating fats to make them inedible.

Mr. Hester: Yes, sir. The amendment reads--

Sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.

We think that takes care of the situation.

The Chairman: We thank you for your statement.

(Thereupon the committee adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.)
TAXATION OF MARIHUANA
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Tuesday, May 4, 1937

House of Representatives
Committee on Ways and Means,
Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10:30 a.m., Hon. Robert L. Doughton (chairman) presiding.

The Chairman: The committee will be in order. The meeting this morning is for the purpose of continuing hearings on H.R. 6385.

When we adjourned last week, Dr. William C. Woodward, legislative counsel of the American Medical Association, was here and ready to testify; but I understood that it would be satisfactory for him to come back this morning.

Dr. Woodward, if you will come forward and give your name and address and the capacity in which you appear, we shall be glad to hear you at this time.

STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM C. WOODWARD, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL, AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, CHICAGO, ILL.

Dr. Woodward: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, my name is Dr. William C. Woodward, representing the American Medical Association. The address is 535 North Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill.

The Chairman: Doctor, would you prefer to make your formal statement uninterrupted, or do you mind interruptions as you go along?

Dr. Woodward: I should prefer to make a connected statement, but I submit very gladly to the pleasure of the committee in that respect, if I do not have the time charged against me that is taken up with interruptions.

Mr. Crowther: I move the gentleman be allowed to continue without interruption until he has completed his main statement.

The Chairman: Without objection, the gentleman will so proceed, after which it is understood he will submit to questions by members of the committee.

Dr. Woodward: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. It is with great regret that I find myself in opposition to any measure that is proposed by the Government, and particularly in opposition to any measure that has been proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury for the purpose of suppressing traffic in narcotics.

I cooperated with Hamilton Wright in drafting the Harrison Narcotics Act. I have been more or less in touch with the narcotics situation since that time. During the past 2 years I have visited the Bureau of Narcotics probably 10 or more times.

Unfortunately, I had no knowledge that such a bill as this was proposed until after it had been introduced. Before proceeding further, I would like to call your attention to a matter in the record wherein the American Medical Association is apparently quoted as being in favor of legislation of this character.

On page 6 of the hearings before this committee, section no. 1, we find the following:

In an editorial on this subject appearing in its editorial columns of April 10, 1937, the Washington Herald quoted the Journal of the American Medical Association in part, as follows:

"The problems of greatest menace in the United States seem to be the rise in the use of Indian hemp (marihuana) with inadequate control laws."

I have here a copy of the editorial referred to and clearly the quotation from that editorial and from the editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association do not correctly represent the views of the association. The Herald is not discussing marihuana alone, but is discussing the narcotic invasion of America. It says:

"This industry has spread its tentacles throughout the Far East and has direct connections with the narcotic rings in Europe and the Americas."

It continues:

To the extent these charges are true the effect is to "weaken and debauch" not the Chinese but the American race.

The evidence that they are largely true is contained in this recent statement in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

"The problems of greatest menace in the United States seem to be the rise in the use of Indian hemp (marihuana) with inadequate control laws, and the oversupply of narcotic drugs available in the Far East threatens to inundate the western world."

Mr. Vinson: Whose article is that? That was in the American medical Association Journal?

Dr. Woodward: That is from an editorial that appeared in the issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association for January 23, 1937, on page 3, in the nature of a review of the report on the Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs in the United States of America for the year ending December 31, 1935, and published by the Bureau of Narcotics of the Treasury Department.

Mr. Vinson: Are you going to put that in the record?

Dr. Woodward: I shall be glad to. The quotation has reference to the seeming situation that results from the statement of the Commissioner of Narcotics and not from any evidence that is in possession of the American Medical Association.

I shall be very glad to submit that.

(The editorials referred to are as follows:)

[Washington Herald, Apr. 10, 1937]

The Narcotic Invasion of America

Americans will pay close attention to the charge by the Council of International Affairs at Nanking that the Japanese concession in Tiensin is world headquarters for the narcotic industry.

Narcotics are reaching the United States in alarming volume.

We are deeply interested in their source.

America is only indirectly concerned in the council's belief that "narcotics are being employed by Japan as an instrument of national policy designed to weaken and debauch the Chinese race."

But America is vitally concerned in the further charge that the dope syndicates are engaged chiefly in exporting narcotics to the United States and that:

"The United States is the big-money market, and happy is the syndicate that can perfect its lines to that country."

The council's bulletin alleges:

"This industry has spread its tentacles throughout the Far East and has direct connections with the narcotic rings in Europe and the Americas."

To the extent these charges are true, the effect is to "weaken and debauch" not the Chinese but the American race.

The evidence that they are largely true is contained in this recent statement in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

"The problems of greatest menace in the United States seem to be the rise in use of Indian hemp (marihuana) with inadequate control laws, and the oversupply of narcotic drugs available in the Far East which threatens to inundate the western world."

It is not America's business to protect China against purported plots of the Japanese. But when any foreign plotting results in a narcotics invasion of the United States, that is America's business.

American laws, Federal and State, to control and prevent traffic in narcotics must be adequate.

Such laws, properly enforced, will remove America as the "big-money market" of the world-wide narcotics industry, and will prevent the debauchment of the American people.

[Journal of the American medical Association, Jan 23, 1937]

Opium Traffic in the United States

As part of the international policy of controlling traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs, each nation signatory to the International Drug Conventions is supposed to prepare an annual report. The report of the United States of America for the year ended December 31, 1935, has been prepared and published by the Bureau of Narcotics of the Treasury Department.1 The number of nonmedical drug addicts in the United States is difficult to determine accurately, but, while formerly believed to approximate one person in every thousand of the population, recent surveys indicate that this figure no longer obtains in many sections of the country. In the nature of a further inquiry into the problem of addiction, the Bureau of Narcotics examined the records of 1,397 of the persons investigated in connection with violation of the narcotic laws in their personal use of drugs. Of these, 946 were found to be addicted to some form of opium or coca derivative, the other 451 giving no evidence of addiction. Of the addicts, 757 were male and 159 female. The average age of the men was 41 and the women 35. Seven hundred and seventy-five were white, 88 oriental, 78 colored, and 3 American Indian, while in two instances the race was not reported. A striking feature was the educational background of these addicted violators. Five hundred and twenty had attended only grade school, 211 had reached high school but not college, and 153 had received some college or university training. These figures indicate a considerably higher percentage of moderately educated people than that existing among the general public.
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1 Anslinger, H.J.: Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs for the Year Ended Dec. 31, 1935, U.S. Treasury Department, Bureau of Narcotics, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1936.
________________

The reasons given for drug addiction were of interest. In 486 instances "associations" were blamed; in 337 illness or injury was named as the responsible factor: other causes mentioned less frequently were indulgence or drink in 50, mental strain or nerves in 14, curiosity or experiment in 10, physical strain or overwork in 6, and deliberate addiction in 1. The previous criminal records of the 946 addicts included 545 charges of felony, 468 misdemeanors, and 1,887 violations of either Federal or State narcotic laws. This is an extremely high criminal record; higher, in fact, than that found in any other group of lawbreakers.

The heaviest arrivals of raw opium in 1935 were in the Atlantic-coast area. There were 14 seizures, 3 of which concerned fairly large quantities: 23, 19, and 17 kilograms. The largest seizures of prepared opium were effected in the Pacific­coast area, almost all of which came from China and appeared to be mostly a blend of Chinese and Persian opium. More than twice as much smoking opium was seized in the United States in 1935 as in 1934, amounting in 1935 to 779 pounds. Morphine was seized in every area reviewed except Hawaii. The total quantity seized during the calendar year 1935 showed an increase of 27.5 percent over that seized the previous year. The amount of heroin seized showed an increase of about 19 percent over the previous year. The amount of cocaine taken, however, showed a decrease of 63 percent as compared with that seized in 1934. The records as a whole contain substantial evidence in the form of labels, packages, and detailed reports to show the existence of an extensively organized narcotic traffic in the Far East. The Opium Advisory committee of the League of Nations has previously called attention to the extreme dangers resulting from this situation.

Closely allied with the opium traffic is the present situation with regard to Indian hemp, or marihuana. There is as yet no Federal legislation penalizing traffic in this drug, and Federal efforts are at present largely confined to restriction of imports and cooperation with those States or local bodies which have effective regulations.

The effectiveness of Federal efforts to control the drug traffic, in cooperation with the League of Nations, is manifest by the amounts of drugs seized, the relatively smaller quantities in which they are transported, and the high percentage of convictions obtained for violation of the laws. In this connection it is noteworthy that for every agent in the Federal field service there are 10 convicted narcotic violators in the Federal penitentiaries. Only about 511 kilograms of narcotic drugs was seized in 1935, as compared with 3-1/2 tons during the fiscal year 1931, when smuggling was rampant. Much smaller shipments are now found, combined with higher adulteration and increased retail price. The number of criminal violations detected rose from 4,742 in 1934 to 5,200 in 1935, while the convictions increased from 1,816 in 1934 to 2,065 in 1935. The two problems of greatest menace at the present time seem to be the rise in use of Indian hemp with inadequate control laws and the oversupply of narcotic drugs available in the Far East, which threatens to inundate the western world.

Dr. Woodward: There is nothing in the medicinal use of Cannabis that has any relation to Cannabis addiction. I use the word "Cannabis" in preference to the word "marihuana", because Cannabis is the correct term for describing the plant and its products. The term "marihuana" is a mongrel word that has crept into this country over the Mexican border and has no general meaning, except as it relates to the use of Cannabis preparations for smoking. It is not recognized in medicine, and I might say that it is hardly recognized even in the Treasury Department.

I have here a copy of a letter written by the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, April 15, 1937, in which he says:

Marihuana is one of the products of the plant Cannabis sativa. L., a plant which is sometimes referred to as Cannabis americana or Cannabis indica.

In other words, marihuana is not the correct term. It was the use of the term "marihuana" rather than the use of the term "Cannabis" or the use of the term "Indian hemp" that was responsible, as you realized, probably, a day or two ago, for the failure of the dealers in Indian hempseed to connect up this bill with their business until rather late in the day. So, if you will permit me, I shall use the word "Cannabis", and I should certainly suggest that if any legislation is enacted, the term used be "Cannabis" and not the mongrel word 'marihuana."

I say the medicinal use of Cannabis has nothing to do with Cannabis or marihuana addiction. In all that you have heard here thus far, no mention has been made of any excessive use of the drug by any doctor or its excessive distribution by any pharmacist. And yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of the country; and I may say very heavily, most heavily, possibly of all, on the farmers of the country.

The medicinal use of Cannabis, as you have been told, has decreased enormously. It is very seldom used.

Mr. Cooper: How is that?

Dr. Woodward: The medicinal use has greatly decreased. The drug is very seldom used. That is partially because of the uncertainty of the effects of the drug. That uncertainty has heretofore been attributed to variations in the potency of the preparations as coming from particular plants; the variations in the potency of the drug as coming from particular plants undoubtedly depends on variations in the ingredients of which the resin of the plant is made up.

To say, however, as has been proposed here, that the use of the drug should be prevented by a prohibitive tax, loses sight of the fact that future investigation may show that there are substantial medical uses for Cannabis.

That there are medical uses for Cannabis is admitted in a report, that has I think, been quoted here before, by a hospital pharmacist in Tunis, Dr. Bouquet. Dr. Bouquet is speaking of the medicinal use of Cannabis and has this to say:

The question is:
Do any preparations of Indian hemp exist possessing a therapeutic value such that nothing else can take their place for medical purposes?

This is part of this pharmacist's report.

The answer is "no."

He submits these qualifications, however:

(a) Indian hemp extract has been recommended for the preparation of corn cures, products that most often consist of a solution of salacylic acid in collodion; the action of the Cannabis extract is nil.

I believe the average physician will readily admit that.

(b) Indian hemp is employed in various preparations for internal use as a sedative and antispasmodic. It does not seem to give better results than belladonna, except perhaps in a few cases of dyspepsia accompanied by painful symptoms.

The number of the exceptions and the character of the cases in which Cannabis gives these superior results are not Stated. He adds:

At my request, experiments were made for several months in 1912 with different preparations of Cannabis, without the addition of other synergistic substances (Professor Lanuois' Service, Lyons Hospitals). The conclusion reached was that in a few rare cases Indian hemp gives good results, but that in general it is not superior to other medicaments which can be used in therapeutics for the treatment of the same affections.

He still admits that there are exceptions in which Cannabis cannot apparently be successfully substituted for.

(c) The work of F. Pascal (Thesis, Toulouse 1934--Contribution to the Study of Cannabis indica.) seems to show that Indian hemp has remarkable properties in revealing the subconscious; hence it can be used for psychological, psychoanalytical, and psychotherapeutic research, though only to a very limited extent.

These are the present uses recognized-----

Mr. Lewis: Are there any substitutes for the latter psychological use?

Dr. Woodward: I know of none. That use, by the way, was recognized by John Stuart Mill in his work on psychology, where he referred to the ability of Cannabis or Indian hemp to revive old memories, and psychoanalysis depends on revivification of hidden memories.

That there is a certain amount of narcotic addiction of an objectionable character no one will deny. The newspapers have called attention to it so prominently that there must be some grounds for there statements. It has surprised me, however, that the facts on which these statements have been based have not been brought before this committee by competent primary evidence. We are referred to newspaper publications concerning the prevalence of marihuana addiction. We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime.

But yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of prisoners who have been found addicted to the marihuana habit. An informed inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no evidence on that point.

You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children's Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit, among children.

Inquiry of the Children's Bureau shows that they have had no occasion to investigate it and know nothing particularly of it.

Inquiry of the Office of Education--- and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among the school children of the country, if there is a prevalent habit--- indicates that they have had no occasion to investigate and know nothing of it.

Moreover, there is in the Treasury Department itself, the Public Health Service, with its Division of Mental Hygiene. The Division of Mental Hygiene was, in the first place, the Division of Narcotics. It was converted into the Division of Mental Hygiene, I think, about 1930. That particular Bureau has control at the present time of the narcotics farms that were created about 1929 or 1930 and came into operation a few years later. No one has been summoned from that Bureau to give evidence on that point.

Informal inquiry by me indicates that they have had no record of any marihuana of Cannabis addicts who have ever been committed to those farms.

The bureau of Public Health Service has also a division of pharmacology. If you desire evidence as to the pharmacology of Cannabis, that obviously is the place where you can get direct and primary evidence, rather than the indirect hearsay evidence.

But we must admit that there is this slight addiction with possibly and probably, I will admit, a tendency toward an increase.

So that we have to raise the question at the present time as to the adequacy or the inadequacy of our present machinery and our present laws, to meet the situation. Those laws are, of course, of two kinds, the Federal laws and the State laws.

As to the State laws, you have been told that every State has a marihuana or Cannabis law of some kind.

My own inquiry indicated that there are two States that had not; but at least 46 States have laws of their own, and the District of Columbia, contrary to what has been told you, has a law that has been in force since 1906 and even at an earlier date.

The District of Columbia law, insofar as it relates to Cannabis, is a part of an act passed by Congress in 1906 entitled "An act to regulate the practice of pharmacy and the sale of poisons in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes", approved May 17, 1906, and originally published as 34 Statutes, 175, which is now to be found in the District Code, section 191 and following.

It limits the sale of Cannabis, its derivatives and its preparations to pharmacists and persons who are authorized assistants to pharmacists.

And in the case of sales by pharmacists and their authorize assistants, there must be either a prescription from an authorized physician, or there must be due inquiry and a proper record made so as to assure the proper use of the drug.

No one, whether a pharmacist or not, under this law, has any right to sell any preparation of Cannabis indica. to any person under 18 years of age except on the written order of an adult. The penalties are rather heavy and the direct duty of enforcing the law is placed on the major and superintendent of police and the corporation counsel of the District of Columbia.

More interesting possibly is the Federal law relating to the matter. You have been told, I believe, that there is no Federal law. The Federal law is a very direct and positive law and I shall be glad to indicate what seems to me to be the basic principle of it.

To go back, if you will, to about 1929 or 1930, when a bill was before Congress proposing to require every physician in the United States who desired to prescribe or dispense narcotic drugs to obtain a Federal permit before he did so, the medical profession objected to any such Federal control, even if it had been possible. It was not only impracticable, because of the size of the country and the number of physicians, but clearly, I think, most of us will admit, a law of that kind is clearly beyond the power of congress.

At that time there was incorporated in the act this provision:

The Secretary of the Treasury shall cooperate with the several States in the suppression of the abuse of narcotic drugs in their respective jurisdictions and to that end he is authorized (1) to cooperate int he drafting of such legislation as may be needed, if any, to effect the end named, and (2) to arrange for the exchange of information concerning the use and abuse of narcotic drugs in said States and for cooperation in the institution and prosecution of cases in the courts of the United States and before the licensing boards and courts of the several States.

The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to make such regulations as may be necessary to carry this section into effect.

Mr. Vinson: What statute is that?

Dr. Woodward: That is the United States Code, 1934 edition, title 21, section 198. It is the statute of June 14, 1930.

Mr. Vinson: To what does it refer?

Dr. Woodward: To the statute that created the present Bureau of Narcotics.

If there is at the present time any weakness in our State laws relating to Cannabis or to marihuana, a fair share of the blame, if not all of it, rests on the Secretary of the Treasury and his assistants who have had this duty imposed upon them for 6 and more years.

That there has been no coordinated effort to bring into effect, in the several States, really effective laws on this subject, I think I can safely assert.

Part of my function in connection with the American Medical Association is the study of State legislation as it is submitted from time to time, and I feel confident that if there had been any general drive inaugurated by the Treasury Department of the purpose of making effective the laws of the several States, that fact would have come to my knowledge. And yet, after all, that is the essential place, the States, for laws of this character.

It has only been very recently, apparently, that there has been any discovery by the Federal Government of the supposed fact that Federal legislation rather than State legislation is desirable.

I have here a copy of a preliminary report on hemp and peyote. Peyote is a different drug, habit forming perhaps. This report is prepared by direction of Surg. Gen. Hugh S. Cumming. It seems to be undated. But it was received from the Public Health Service September 26, 1932, and, referring to Cannabis, the statement is made, on page 12 of this mimeograph copy:

At present the situation does not seem to concern the American people as a whole, and local, and State legislative measures seem the best means of restricting its abuses.

I have here another statement submitted to the League of Nations Advisory committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs. It reports on the situation as regards Indian hemp and was forwarded by the representative of the United States of America. In it you will find the following statement:

The Bureau of Narcotics has always inclined to the opinion that the best method of attacking the problem lies in the enactment of appropriate State legislation and to that end has suggested to the States, as a portion of the measure known as the uniform Narcotic Drug Act terms of legislation designed to control the production and sale of Cannabis, and because of the fact that the plant may be found over a widespread area in its wild state, a prohibition against its unauthorized possession.

The there follows a discussion of the difficulties of Federal enforcement of any law dealing with the geographic extent of the States and the wild character of the drug, and matters of that sort.

I think it might be well to consider for a moment the relative difficulties that might be faced by the States, as compared with those encountered by the Federal Government, in the enforcement of a law such as is here proposed.

Here is a law that proposes to bring within its scope everyone who produces, wittingly or unwittingly, a particle of Cannabis. It into every farm and every bit of land of every kind. We have this definition of producer. This comes in section 1, paragraph (c), page 2, lines 7 to 12, of the bill:

The term "producer" includes any person who (1) plants, grows, cultivates, or in any way facilitates the natural growth of marihuana; (2) harvests and transfers or makes use of marihuana or (3) fails to destroy marihuana within 10 days after notice that such marihuana is growing upon land under his control.

That means every potential owner of land in the United States is a potential and maybe an unwitting producer of marihuana. If the weed springs up on his land without his knowledge, he may have to go out and cut it, on notice.

You were told the other day that the notice must be a notice from the Secretary of the Treasury, but there is no such requirement. It is any notice whatsoever. There is no statement that it must be a notice from the Secretary of the Treasury. You can realize the difficulty that the Federal Government would have in covering the entire United States by an inspection force such as would be necessary to locate the growth of marihuana even in considerable quantities.

Marihuana grows wild along railroad tracks, along highways, on land belonging to the Federal Government, on land belonging to the States, on immense farms and ranches, forest land and places of that sort; places to which, by the way, the Federal Government, I believe, has no inherent right of entry. I know that it can obtain a warrant for a search, if there is reason to believe that the law is being violated. But that is in contrast with the State laws that authorize, at least some of the State agencies, to enter upon property without search warrants. I refer now to the customary right of entry that is possessed by health officers in the country.

The Federal Government could never determine where this plant was growing. It could never undertake to prosecute, and if it did prosecute it would meet with the same difficulty that it met in prosecuting under the National Prohibition Act; the inadequacy of courts and the inadequacy of prosecuting attorneys, and I may say, the inadequacy of jails.

Incidentally, at this point, there is one provision in the section that I have just read that I feel confident may have escaped the notice of the Secretary of the Treasury when he recommended the introduction of this bill; because under the section that I have just read, anyone who makes use of marihuana is a producer. As a producer he must be taxed, but apparently has the right to pay that tax and obtain the drug as a matter of course.

Reduced to its last analysis, that means that any addict that can afford to raise the tax can go in and register as a producer and can then obtain such of the drug as he wants on order forms, for his own use. That, it seems to me, must clearly be an oversight.

Coming back now to the question of State laws, I think admittedly they are weak. They have laws. But if the Federal Government, instead of proposing a law as is here proposed, will cooperate effectively with the States in its suppression, not only of marihuana, but of opium and cocaine addiction, we shall get better results.

I have suggested more than once to the Commissioner of Narcotics, the advisability of following the plan that has been followed so successfully in the bureau of Public Health, and that is being followed to a certain extent by the Bureau of Investigation in the Department of Justice. That is the establishment of a system of annual conferences with State officers, for the purpose of coordinating their work and making their work more effective.

The Federal Government will never get anywhere under this proposed bill without the cooperation of the States, and the most effective way to acquire it is through State conferences, and have the States enforce their own State laws, with the aid of the Federal Government.

I think there is a general tendency to evade responsibility on the part of the States and place their responsibility on the Federal Government. That is a thing that many of us think ought not to be tolerated.

In addition to the law that I have just read, there are other Federal laws, among them a law that has been in force for many years and with the enforcement of which the Secretary of the Treasury is not directly concerned, but I think a law, the enforcement of which he might well have interested himself in, in so far as it relates to narcotic drugs of all kinds, and particularly marihuana. I refer to the old statute that requires the teaching of the effects of narcotic drugs in all common public schools, in the District of Columbia and all territories and places under the control of the Federal Government, and, incidentally, at West Point and the naval Academy.

I think the proper preparation of an adequate course of instruction originating in the Treasury Department and distributed, it may be, through the Office of Education, would be an effective means of limiting dangers of narcotic addiction.

The trouble is that we are looking on narcotic addiction solely as a vice. It is a vice, but like all vices, it is based on human nature. The use of narcotics, as is trite at the present time in the medical profession, represents an effort on the part of the individual to adjust himself to some difficult situation in his life. He will take one thing to stimulate him and another to quiet him. His will is weakened in proportion as he relies on drugs of that sort. And until we develop young men and young women who are able to suffer a little and exercise a certain amount of control, even though it may be inconvenient and unpleasant to do so, we are going to have a considerable amount of addiction to narcotics and addiction to other drugs.

A very interesting recent popular book by Beverly Nichols, No Place Like Home, page 153, quotes the wonderfully efficient narcotic officer in Egypt as saying that persons were using tea for the purpose of getting a jag, if you will, boiling that tea day after day, until they got a hyper concentrated extract, and then sitting up all night to drink it, and spending their money for tea, rendering themselves unfit and unable to work.

So that we must deal with narcotic addiction as something more than a police measure.

We, of the medical profession, of course, are interested, as are all citizens, in the prevalence or the growth of the narcotic habit. We are interested particularly in this bill because it proposes to tax physicians who desire to use Cannabis. And it taxes the pharmacists and the manufacturing pharmacists and others who supply them.

I think I may safely say, although I am speaking without direct authority from the house of delegates or the board of trustees---I think I may safely say that the American Medical Association would enter no objection at all to the inclusion of Cannabis indica. or the various types of Cannabis, in the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Under that act we are already paying a slight tax, such a tax as is sufficient merely to give the Government jurisdiction. We have certain order forms that we have to fill out to get the drug. We are required to comply with certain conditions in giving prescriptions for any of the narcotic drugs. And if Cannabis should be included in the drugs named, I think I can feel quite sure in saying there would be no objection.

It has been alleged here that the reason for not including it is the fact that the constitutionality of the Harrison Act has been passed upon the Supreme Court of the United States. It has, it is true, but only by a divided court. And unwillingness is expressed to incorporate in it any provisions relating to Cannabis, because of the supposed danger of jeopardizing the Harrison Narcotic Act. And, yet, while you are told that in one breath, in another breath you are positively assured-- with all the positiveness that a lawyer can have with respect to such matters--- that this proposed bill is constitutional. If this proposed bill is constitutional, there can be no reason why its provisions should not be incorporated in the Harrison Narcotic Act. If it is not constitutional, obviously it should not be enacted.

But insofar as the regulation of the use of Cannabis by the medical profession is concerned, I think there can be no question concerning the constitutionality of incorporating in the Harrison Narcotic Act, provisions similar to those now there relating to opium and cocoa leaves.

And, then, if there are in this bill provisions that are of questionable constitutionality, I am sure that any competent draftsman will be able to draft a separate measure, and put them into a form where, if their constitutionality is called into question, the question will not affect the Harrison Narcotic Act.

I beg, therefore, that if you decide that it is better to enact Federal legislation of this kind than to provide the Secretary of the Treasury with adequate means for procuring State cooperation in the enforcement of their own laws, and in enacting proper laws,---I beg that you insist simply that so far as the medical profession is concerned these provisions be incorporated in the Harrison narcotic Act.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. vinson: Doctor, what is your connection with the American Medical Association?

Dr. Woodward: I am the director of the bureau of legal medicine and legislation and act as legislative counsel.

I should explain, perhaps, that I am a doctor, licensed to practice medicine; but I am also, I may say, a member of the bar, a lawyer.

Mr.Vinson: How long have you occupied that position?

Dr. Woodward: Since 1922.

Mr. Vinson: Before that time did you have any connection with the American Medical Association?

Dr. Woodward: For a while I was a member of its counsel on health and public instruction. I was a member of the Association and have been a member of it since 1892 or 1993.

Mr. Vinson: Were you connected with the association, or did you appear at the time the Harrison Narcotic Act was pending before Congress?

Dr. Woodward: I was at that time not their legislative representative. I was merely a correspondent who passed along to them such news as came to my attention. I was requested by the association at that time to cooperate with Dr. Hamilton Wright in preparing the law.

Mr. Vinson: You and your association favored the passage of the Harrison narcotic Act?

Dr. Woodward: I will not say we favored it. We felt it was an experiment.

Mr. Vinson: What was the position of the American Medical Association at the time the Harrison narcotic bill was being considered?

Dr. Woodward: So far as my recollection serves me they were in favor of State legislation. They realized the uncertainty of the passage of the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Mr. Vinson: And that is the position that you take today in regard to marihuana?

Dr. Woodward: That the most effective way is adequacy of State legislation plus Federal aid: Federal aid directly, and Federal aid through the Pure Food and Drug Act: cooperation between the Federal Government and the States with respect to the transportation of marihuana in interstate and foreign commerce through the mails.

Mr. Vinson: Now, as I caught your statement, you said that you had received no instruction and had no specific authority from the American medical Association to state their position in respect to this bill, but that you felt safe in submitting their position; is that right?

Dr. Woodward: If I created that impression, I created the wrong impression. I said that the policy of the American medical Association was determinable--- I intended to say that the policy of the American Medical Association was determinable by our house of delegates or our board of trustees, when it comes to legislation of this sort.

I should add, however, that the house of delegates, not being available from which to receive instructions, and the board of trustees not being available, I did receive instructions from the executive committee of the board of trustees of the American Medical Association to appear here and oppose this bill.

Mr. Vinson: Let us see. You have a house of delegates?

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: Is that a popular body in the association?

Dr. Woodward: It is.

Mr. Vinson: They have not acted, have they?

Dr. Woodward: They meet once a year and have had no chance.

Mr. vinson: And what was the other group that had not acted?

Dr. Woodward: The board of trustees.

Mr. Vinson: How are they selected?

Dr. Woodward: They are elected by the house of delegates. That is the governing body in the interim between annual meetings.

Mr. Vinson: And this other group, the executive council?

Dr. Woodward: The executive committee of the board of trustees.

Mr. Vinson: They are a small number?

Dr. Woodward: They are a smaller number; I think they are three or five men that get together during intervals. They can do it more conveniently than nine men can from all over the country.

Mr. Vinson: When did they get together?

Dr. Woodward: It must have been about the 19th or 20th of the month.

Mr. vinson: After the introduction of this bill?

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. Vinson: They got together and advised you of their position?

Dr. Woodward: They did.

Mr. Vinson: And that followed in a general way, the attitude of the American Medical Association in respect to the Harrison Narcotic Act?

Dr. Woodward: It did.

Mr. Vinson: You seemed to take issue with the gentlemen representing the Treasury on the legal proposition; but I did not hear you say anything about the analogy of the Firearms case with the legal points involved in this act. You recognize that that opinion of the Supreme Court strengthens the position of the Treasury in the omission of certain functions that are contained in the Harrison Act?

Dr. Woodward: It broadens their functions. what I had in mind was the analogy of this act to the old Child Labor Tax Act, that you may recall, was decided in Collector of Internal Revenue v. The Drexel Furniture Co. (259 U.S. 20, in 1922).

Mr. Vinson: But the doctor, who is also a judge, recognizes that there has been a line of demarcation, not only in the Supreme Court opinion, but in the State courts, between that which is injurious and deleterious in itself and that which is not.

Dr. Woodward: May I read from the---

Mr. Vinson: That is a correct statement, is it not?

Dr. Woodward: That is a correct statement.

May I read from what the Court said in that case with respect to the use of the taxing power for the purpose of enforcing moral purposes? I read in part:

Taxes are occasionally imposed in the discretion of the legislature on proper subjects with the primary motive of obtaining revenue from them, and with the incidental motive of discouraging them, by making their continuance onerous. they do not lose their character as taxes because of the incidental motive. But there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment.

Mr. Vinson: When that same argument was directed at the Harrison narcotic Statute, that argument fell, did it not?

Dr. Woodward: Fell by a divided court.

Mr. Vinson: I say, it fell?

Dr. Woodward: It fell; yes.

Mr. Vinson: While it was a divided court, it fell?

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. Vinson: How long has it been that the american medical Association has been critical of the Federal Government in the matter of enacting legislation looking toward the control of the marihuana habit?

Dr. Woodward: It is not a habit that is connected with the medical profession and the medical profession knows very little of it.

Mr. Vinson: I did not ask you that, doctor.

Dr. Woodward: It arises outside of the medical profession, and the American Medical Association has no more evidence concerning it or the extent of the marihuana habit than this committee has.

Mr. Vinson: My question was this. has the American Medical Association taken cognizance of the marihuana habit and the need for its control?

Dr. Woodward: Only in connection with the development of a uniform State narcotics act.

Mr. Vinson: Let us see, doctor----

Dr. Woodward: I spent 5 years in connection with the national conference of commissioners on Uniform State Laws, in drafting that act, and there you will find a reference to Cannabis. That reference is based on a thorough study of the Cannabis situation at that time. The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, cooperating with the American Medical Association and with the Bureau of Narcotics and the American Pharmaceutical Association and other agencies, could not then find evidence that would lead it to incorporate in the model act a provision with respect to marihuana or Cannabis.

Mr. Vinson: When was that?

Dr. Woodward: What it did, however, was to frame provisions that might be incorporated in the act by anyone who was interested in regulation.

Mr. Vinson:When was that study, when did that occur?

Dr. Woodward: That must have occurred-- I do not believe I have a copy of it here.

Mr. vinson: Approximately?

Dr. Woodward: Five years ago.

Mr. vinson: I hand you here an editorial which I asked you to file. It seems to be the first editorial in the issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association dated Saturday, January 23, 1937, and it is headed Opium Traffic in the United States.

I take it that someone connected with the American Medical Association wrote that editorial.

Dr. Woodward: I assume that is correct.

Mr. Vinson: Do you know who did it?

Dr. Woodward: I do not know.

Mr.Vinson: Well, I want to read from the editorial a quotation that you did not call our attention to.

Closely allied with the opium traffic is the present situation with regard to Indian hemp, or marihuana. There is as yet no Federal legislation penalizing traffic in this drug, and Federal efforts are at present largely confined to restriction of imports and cooperation with those States or local bodies which have effective regulations.

It just seems to me that that is something of a criticism that the Federal Government has as yet passed no legislation penalizing the traffic in this drug.

Dr. Woodward: Mr. Vinson, if you will read that as a whole, you will find that it is substantially a review of a report made by the Commissioner of Narcotics, and mirrors in its statement of the facts and opinions, the facts and opinions that were embodied in his report.

Mr. Vinson: Do you not think that an editorial appearing in a great periodical such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, which does not attribute its conclusions to Mr. Anslinger's report, is entitled to consideration?

Dr. Woodward: It is a discussion of the opium traffic in the United States and the footnote reference is as follows:

Anslinger, H. J.: Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs for the Year Ended December 31, 1935, U.S. Treasury Department, Bureau of Narcotics, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1936.

Mr. Vinson: What does the footnote refer to? I did not expect this of you. I looked to see where that footnote came in. To what does this footnote refer? It comes in about the second or third sentence, where it refers to a certain report.

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. Vinson: A report that was made by Mr. anslinger?

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. Vinson: The rest of that article, or that editorial, is not a quotation from Mr. Anslinger's report. They are giving a history, a picture of the opium traffic; is that not correct? That is, the opium and other narcotics traffic.

Dr. Woodward: They are mirroring the picture of the opium traffic given by Mr. Anslinger, as you must realize if you see the figures that are embodied in the statement. We certainly could not get those figures otherwise than from Mr. Anslinger's report.

Mr. Vinson: But if it does that; if it mirrors, as you say, the statements in Mr. Anslinger's report, we find that it comes to another paragraph; and I ask you here whether this is the language of the editor who wrote the editorial, or whether it is the language of the Anslinger report:

Closely allied with the opium traffic is the present situation with regard to Indian hemp, or marihuana. there is as yet no Federal legislation penalizing traffic in this drug, and Federal efforts are at present largely confined to restriction of imports, and cooperation with those States or local bodies which have effective regulations.

Dr. Woodward: I shall have to say that I do not know whether that is a substantially direct quotation from Mr. Anslinger's report or whether those are the words of the editor based on the report.

Mr. Vinson: To anyone who reads as he runs, to the ordinary person who would read this editorial, either a doctor or a layman, this editorial contained in the Journal of the American Medical Association under date of January 23, 1937, after the introduction of this bill, would there be anything to even squint at that being other than an editorial comment?

Dr. Woodward: In answer to that, I shall have to say, most certainly I can say, that no person of judgement reading that editorial would attribute it to any source other than Commissioner Anslinger's report.

Mr. Vinson: Let us get down here in the latter part of it.

Mr. McCormack: Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Vinson: I yield.

Mr. McCormack:Editorial comment, of course, determines the policy of a magazine or newspaper?

Dr. Woodward: Not at all.

Mr. McCormack: the editorial comment does not?

Dr. Woodward: No.

Mr. McCormack: the editorial page is where I always look to find out the policy of the paper.

Dr. Woodward: The policies of the American Medical Association are made by the house of delegates, and under our bylaws, no one is authorized to express an opinion on behalf of the American Medical Association except the house of delegates, otherwise than as the board of trustees, in the interval between the annual meetings, may find it necessary to do so.

Mr. McCormack: Did the house of delegates tell the editor what he should write in an editorial, or would the house of delegates do that?

Dr. Woodward: It certainly does not.

Mr. McCormack: Assuming that what you say is correct, that this is a reprint of Commissioner Anslinger's report, quoting it in the editorial page, what would the average reader infer from that? Would he not infer that the editorial policy of the paper accepts the report of commissioner Anslinger as the basis of their editorial?

Dr. Woodward: As the basis of their editorial, certainly.

Mr. McCormack: Accepts it?

Dr. Woodward: As the basis of the editorial. They are informative editorials. You might refer to many other editorials. You will find that the average one is an informative editorial rather than one that determines the policy or indicates, even, the policy of the association. The editor would not dare to express the policy of the American Medical Association in the editorial columns of the Journal in any way contrary to the policy as determined by the house of delegates.

Mr. Thompson: will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McCormack: I yield.

Mr. Thompson: Doctor, is it not a fact that Dr. Fishbein is the editor of the American medical journal?

Dr. Woodward: He is.

Mr. thompson: And does not the American public generally regard Dr. Fishbein as representing the views of the American Medical Association in what he says editorially?

Dr. Woodward: I can hardly say what the American public---

Mr. Thompson: It seems that way out in my country, at least. When he speaks, people think that the American Medical Association expresses itself through Dr. Fishbein.

Mr. Vinson: Doctor, you say that the medical profession have not seen that there is an increased number of addicts to marihuana. The very last sentence in this editorial, the same editorial, conveys to me the thought that not only is the menace recognized, but there is another criticism of lack of control; and I read this sentence:

The two problems of greatest menace at the present time seem to be the rise in the use of Indian hemp, with inadequate control laws and the oversupply of narcotic drugs available in the Far East, which threatens to inundate the western world.

Dr. Woodward: I think we shall agree that, based on Commissioner Anslinger's statement, that does seem to be the case.

Mr. Vinson: Doctor, you have been appearing before committees of Congress on behalf of the American Medical Association for 15 years in your present status?

Dr. Woodward: About 15 years.

Mr. Vinson: And for several years before that; is that correct?

Dr. Woodward: Back to 1892, seldom a year has passed that I have not appeared before one or more committees of Congress.

Mr. Vinson: Would it be too much trouble for you to give us a statement of bills on which you have testified, representing the American Medical Association, and the stand that you took in regard to the pending legislation?

Dr. Woodward: It would be certainly impossible to do that.

Mr. Vinson: Let us take the last 15 years. What bills have you advocated the passage of in behalf of the American medical Association since 1922?

Dr. Woodward: We have most vigorously advocated the passage of food and drug, medical device, and cosmetic legislation, and we are doing so now.

Mr. Vinson: which one?

Dr. Woodward: There are several.

Mr. Vinson: There are several bills, and there are several groups of folks who are fighting your bill. Which bill are you supporting? Is it the administrative bill?

Dr. Woodward: There are two administrative bills, so to speak. either one of them can be amended to make it an effective bill. I should say, if you want my own judgement, it is that the Copeland bill, in its present form, is the best bill that has yet reached Congress; and it is woefully ineffective, so far as it relates to drugs, therapeutic devices, and advertising.

Mr. Vinson: What other legislation have you sponsored or favored?

Dr. Woodward: I would have to go back and look through the record.

Mr. Vinson: The point is that I want to know what legislation, what affirmative action of Congress, has the American Medical Association sponsored since you have been connected with it?

Dr. Woodward: I should have to go back and search the records for it.

Mr. Vinson: Three years ago, when the social security bill was pending, when we had title VI before us, which some of us thought was quite helpful, where were you?

Dr. Woodward: Where was the American Medical Association?

Mr. Vinson: Where were you? I know where the American Medical Association was, because President Behring happened to be in town. He was president of the American Medical Association, was interested, and testified, not because he was authorized to do so by the house of delegates of your association, but he testified in favor of the legislation: title VI, dealing with public health. That was pending for several months. I was just wondering where you were when that piece of work, looking at it from a medical viewpoint, was pending.

Dr. Woodward: I personally, I resume, was in Chicago. That is where my headquarters are.

Mr. Vinson: You knew about it, did you not?

Dr. Woodward: We knew about it, and we might differ with you in your judgement as to whether it was or was not a piece of medical legislation.

Mr. Vinson: As a matter of fact, you do differ--- you personally differ?

Dr. Woodward: Personally, I certainly do.

Mr. Vinson: You do not approve it now?

Dr. Woodward: Well----

Mr. Vinson: I am not speaking of the law, but you do not approve the performance of that kind of a function now?

Dr. Woodward: What kind of a function, Mr. Vinson?

Mr. Vinson: Title VI.

Dr. Woodward: What is title VI?

Mr. Vinson: I thought you understood what title VI was.

Dr. Woodward: Let us get that in the record, if you please.

Mr. Vinson: Title VI of the social security bill provided for an authorization of $10,000,000, $2,000,000 of which was to go for research and investigation and $8,000,000 of which was to be used in grants for States for public health work.

Dr. Woodward: I do not believe the American Medical Association ever opposed provisions for research and investigation. It has been, and is, consistently opposed to anything that seems to involve, through subsidies, the purchase of State rights by the Federal Government.

Mr. Vinson: You do not agree with that policy?

Dr. Woodward: The purchase of States rights?

Mr. Vinson: I am talking about the policy set forth in the social security bill, title VI, with which you are very familiar.

Dr. Woodward: Let us limit it. I shall say that I am thoroughly in favor of the appropriation by the Federal Government of adequate money for research by the Public Health Service or any other agency of the Government; and an adequate appropriation of money by the Federal Government to meet the needs of the destitute and suffering States anywhere.

Mr. Vinson: I still ask you to say whether or not you favored the passage of that act at that time, or whether or not you favor the principle set forth in it now.

Dr. Woodward: We took no position.

Mr. Vinson: I am not talking about "we." I am talking about you personally.

Dr. Woodward: Me personally?

Mr. Vinson: Yes, sir; because I know that you have quite an influence on the policy of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Woodward: You flatter me in that respect. I should say the general policy of the Federal Government with respect to the old age pensions----

Mr. Vinson: No; that is not what I asked.

Dr. Woodward: You mean the health part of it?

Mr. Vinson: Title VI, "Public health."

Dr. Woodward: I just stated that we favor anything that promotes public health.

Mr. Vinson: You did not favor it, did you?

Dr. Woodward: Yes, we favor that.

Mr. Vinson: You did not appear?

Dr. Woodward: I did not actively appear.

Mr. Vinson: We happened to catch the president of the American Medical Association while he was visiting here, and he was big enough and broad enough to come to the support of the legislation.

Dr. Woodward: I did not appear in that, because I was not instructed to. I might say--- it is a personal matter, although it may interest the committee to see the background from which I come--- I was health officer of the District of Columbia for 24 years, from 1894 until 1918.

I was health commissioner of the city of Boston from 1918 to 1922, when I took my present position.

I have graduated in the law and have been licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, in Massachusetts, and in Illinois. I am a member of the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.

I am licensed to practice medicine in the District of Columbia and in Massachusetts.

The Chairman: You seem to qualify both as a lawyer and as a doctor.

Dr. Woodward: I have lectured on legal medicine in one or two or three or four colleges every year since 1892.

Mr. Cooper: Doctor, I agree with the Chairman that you have established that you are both a doctor and a lawyer. Now i understood you to say that you did not favor the passage of the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Dr. Woodward: We favored it to the extent of actively cooperating in the framing of it and securing its passage. We did not regard it as an act that was going to accomplish what it set out to accomplish; and it has not. If you will stop for a moment to think that the addicts of the country are still obtaining their supply of narcotic drugs through the drugs that are illicitly brought into the United States in contravention of the provisions of that act, and that they distribute them in contravention of the provisions of that act--- if you will examine certain testimony given by the Commissioner of Narcotics before the Judiciary Committee of the House a day or two ago, cited in this very hearing as evidence of his support of this bill, you will find that there is no such support at all but is a frank confession on his part that he needs more authority before he can enforce the Harrison Narcotic Act. We need heavier penalties; we need other provisions. we cannot enforce the act, and you would find the enforcement of this act a thousand times more difficult than the enforcement of the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Mr. Cooper: I understood you to state a few moments ago, in answer to a question asked by Mr. Vinson, that you did not favor the passage of the Harrison Narcotic Act, because you entertained the view that the control should be exercised by the States.

Dr. Woodward: I think you are probably correct. But we cooperated in securing its passage.

Mr. Cooper: You did not favor it, though?

Dr. Woodward: Did not favor the principle, no.

Mr. cooper: Are you prepared to state now that that act has produced beneficial results?

Dr. Woodward: I think it has.

Mr. Cooper: You think it has?

Dr. Woodward: I think it has.

Mr. cooper: You appeared before the committee, the Ways and Means Committee of the House, in 1930, when the bill was under consideration to establish the Bureau of Narcotics, did you not?

Dr. Woodward: I did.

Mr. Cooper: And at that time, did you not state that "the physicians are required by law to register in one form or another, either by taking out a license or by a system of registration that is provided for in the Harrison Narcotic Act; they are required to keep records of everything they do in relation to the professional and commercial use of narcotic drugs. To that, I think, we can enter no fair objection, because I see no other way by which the situation can be controlled."

That was your view then, was it not?

Dr. Woodward: It was; and if I may interject, to that--- that same method of regulating Cannabis, insofar as it is a medical problem, tying it in with the Harrison Narcotic Act--- I think you will find that our board of trustees and house of delegates will object.

Mr. Cooper: I understood you as criticizing, or at least calling attention to, the failure of testimony to be presented here from the Bureau of Prisons, the Children's Bureau, the Office of Education and other Government agencies on this subject.

Dr. Woodward: The Indian Bureau, for instance, among whose charges there is certainly a tendency to use narcotics. They have no evidence to submit on this bill.

Mr. cooper: Regardless of all that, do you state now before this committee that there is no difficulty involved--- that there is no trouble presented because of marihuana?

Dr. Woodward: I do not.

Mr. cooper: What is your position on that?

Dr. Woodward: My position is that if the Secretary of the Treasury will cooperate with the States in procuring the enactment of adequate State legislation, as he is charged with doing under the law, and will cooperate with the States in the enforcement of the State laws and the Federal law, as likewise he is charged with doing, the problem will be solved through local police officers, local inspectors, and so forth.

Mr. cooper: With all due deference and respect to you, you have not touched, top side, or bottom, the question that I asked you. I asked you: Do you recognize that a difficulty is involved and regulation necessary in connection with marihuana?

Dr. Woodward: I do. I have tried to explain that it is a State matter.

Mr. Cooper: Regardless whether it is a State or a Federal matter, there is trouble?

Dr. Woodward: There is trouble.

Mr. Cooper: There is trouble existing now, and something should be done about it. It is a menace, is it not?

Dr. Woodward: A menace for which there is adequate remedy.

Mr. Cooper: Well, it probably comes within our province as to what action should be taken about it. I am trying to get from you some view, if you will be kind enough to give it. To what do you object in this particular bill, in the method that is sought to be employed here?

Dr. Woodward: My interest is primarily, of course, in the medical aspects. We object to the imposing of an additional tax on physicians, pharmacists, and others, catering to the sick; to require that they register and reregister; that they have special order forms to be used for this particular drug, when the matter can just as well be covered by an amendment to the Harrison Narcotic Act.

If you are referring to the particular problem. I object to the act because it is utterly unsusceptible of execution, and an act that is not susceptible of execution is a bad thing on the statute books.

Mr. Cooper: I would be more interested in knowing what objection you would offer from the doctor's of physician's standpoint.

Dr. Woodward: The matter of registration, added registration, added fees.

Mr. Cooper: What are the fees required under this act?

Dr. Woodward: They are low, but in the aggregate they will impose on the sick of the country a tax of probably a million dollars.

Mr. Cooper: The registration fee provided is $1 a year, is it not?

Dr. Woodward: It is a dollar a year for a practitioner.

Mr. Cooper: A dollar a year for the doctor or physician to pay. Do you think the doctors of this country would object to the payment of a dollar a year?

Dr. Woodward: The unnecessary payment of a dollar a year; yes.

Mr. Cooper: You think they would seriously object to the payment of a dollar a year?

Dr. Woodward: They would object not seriously to that if that were all.

Mr. Cooper: All right; that is what I am talking about; the payment of a dollar a year.

Dr. Woodward: They object to paying fees that they have to pay and the execution of forms and the use of special records, and everything of that kind.

Mr. Cooper: And that was one of the objections to the Harrison Narcotic Act, was it not?

Dr. Woodward: I do not recall that particular objection.

Mr. Cooper: Do you not recognize that some such regulation, some method as that in this bill is necessary if the problem is to be solved and the situation met properly?

Dr. Woodward: No. I recognize that it is entirely unnecessary because a measure now exists in the Harrison Narcotic Act with which this can be tied in.

Mr. Cooper: has the method employed under the Harrison Narcotic Act produced satisfactory results, in your opinion?

Dr. Woodward: If you will define "satisfactory". I should say the method of registration has not yet satisfactorily solved the narcotic problem for the United States, and never will.

Mr. Cooper: You do not think the Harrison narcotic Act has produced any favorable results in the country then?

Dr. Woodward: No; I said before that it has produced favorable results.

Mr. Cooper: And you do not think the system of registration provided for there has proven successful?

Dr. Woodward: No. I believe it has proved successful insofar as such a system can prove successful. It registers the honest man, the men who will comply with the law, and the offenders who will not comply with the law not only do not register, but they are not required to register.

Mr. Cooper: Is not registration of doctors or physicians necessary for effective control of this problem that we have?

Dr. Woodward: They are already registered.

Mr. Cooper: I am not talking about that. It is necessary for an effective control of this problem that we have here?

Dr. Woodward: Registration is, but not new registration. We are already registered.

Mr. Cooper: I understand all of that. But do you think registration is necessary to meet the problem that we have here?

Dr. Woodward: Some kind of registration; yes.

Mr. Cooper: All right.

Dr. Woodward: But we have it already.

Mr. Cooper: You recognize the fact, of course, that in your two professions, medicine and the law--- and it is my privilege to be a member of one of those professions--- the vast majority of ethical practitioners, noble men engaged in those laudable pursuits, vastly outnumber the few who are unethical and are no credit to the profession, do you not?

Dr. Woodward: That is true.

Mr. Cooper: But you do have a few in both of these great professions that reflect no great credit on the professions, is that correct?

Dr. Woodward: Undoubtedly.

Mr. Cooper: Do you not recognize the fact that when we are dealing with a problem as far reaching in its scope as this, that we have to have some regulation that will be effective on that small minority of those who are not willing to measure up to the high ethics of the profession, to regulate and control them in some way?

Dr. Woodward: We recognize that fully.

Mr. Cooper: And you do not believe that this vast majority of ethical practitioners will be glad to cooperate in order to see this small minority brought under a proper degree of control?

Dr. Woodward: They will be glad to cooperate and they are cooperating, but we ask cooperation on the part of the Federal Government by not imposing an unnecessary burden which in the end falls on the sick.

Mr. McCormack: Will the gentleman yield right there?

Mr. Cooper: I yield.

Mr. McCormack: You say, in response to Mr. Cooper's question that one of the objections is registration. Do doctors register under the State laws now, where they exist?

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir.

Mr. McCormack: You said that another objection was the making out of forms. Do they make out forms under State laws where they now exist?

Dr. Woodward: Under the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Mr. McCormack: I am talking about the uniform State laws with reference to marihuana.

Dr. Woodward: There is no uniform State law with reference to marihuana.

Mr. McCormack: Thirty-five or thirty-six States have such a law?

Dr. Woodward: Some kind of a law.

Mr. McCormack: Well, they register under those laws, do they not?

Dr. Woodward: They register under the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Mr. McCormack: I am talking about State marihuana laws. Do they register under these State laws?

Dr. Woodward: If it is embodied in the uniform narcotic act; if the marihuana act of the State is embodied in its uniform State narcotic act, then according to my best recollection, the act requires registration under the harrison Narcotic Act as compliance with the State law.

Mr. McCormack: Then they have to make out forms under the State law?

Dr. Woodward: No. The Federal forms are adequate wherever there are Federal forms.

Mr. McCormack: But where there is a State law with reference to marihuana, they have to make out some kind of forms?

Dr. Woodward: Prescriptions, probably.

Mr. McCormack: They have to make a report of some kind, do they not?

Dr. Woodward: They probably do, but they do not deal with marihuana at all.

Mr. McCormack: I do not want to take up too much of Mr. Cooper's time, but I would like to ask this: You do not object to registration under State legislation?

Dr. Woodward: I do not.

Mr. McCormack: And you do not object to making out forms under State legislation?

Dr. Woodward: We do object-- as a mater of fact, that it the reason that the uniform State law provides---

Mr. McCormack: (interposing). Doctor, I just asked a very simple question. You do not object to registering under State law?

Dr. Woodward: We are already registered. We do not object to registering.

Mr. McCormack: You do not object to making out forms and other clerical records under State law?

Dr. Woodward: That is, if there is no other registration that duplicates it.

Mr. McCormack: All right; but under State law.

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. McCormack: And if the Federal Government did not undertake to meet this problem but left it to the States, then you would recognize that any State legislation would require registration and making out of records and reports?

Dr. Woodward: That would depend on the nature of the law, certainly.

Mr. McCormack: But you would not object to it?

Dr. Woodward: We would not object to any reasonable registration.

Mr. McCormack: Under State law?

Dr. Woodward: Under any law, Federal or State; any reasonable degree of registration, Federal or State, we are perfectly willing to abide by.

Mr. Robertson: Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McCormack: I yield.

Mr. Robertson: Doctor, I understood from the editorial that you filed that the editor said we had no adequate law covering marihuana. I understood you to testify that it was covered by an act of 1930 and later you said that you thought it ought to be included under the Harrison Narcotic Act. Which of those three do you recommend to us?

Dr. Woodward: If I were called upon to adjust the matter, I should say that the Secretary of the Treasury should be provided with means to enable him to discharge the duty imposed upon him by Congress, of cooperating with the several States in securing enactment of adequate laws, and the enforcement of those laws, to prevent the prevalence and continuance of the Cannabis habit.

Mr. Robertson: Then we have no adequate law at the present time?

Dr. Woodward: Some of the State laws are adequate; others are not.

Mr. Robertson: But no adequate Federal law?

Dr. Woodward: No adequate Federal law that relates to intrastate matters.

Mr. Robertson: Yes. Now, does the production of Cannabis or marihuana or Indian hemp differ in some respects from principal narcotics covered by the Harrison Narcotic Act?

Dr. Woodward: You mean production generally?

Mr. Robertson: The widespread production or possibility of production in this country.

Dr. Woodward: The only difference is that the cocoa plant and the opium plant do not grow here as yet and the Cannabis plant does.

Mr. Robertson: Then that makes it a peculiar problem with respect to the Cannabis plant, if it is a habit-forming drug, deleterious in its effect?

Dr. Woodward: But the Harrison Narcotic Act provides for the registration of producers, and the men who grow are producers.

Mr. Cooper: I understood you to say a few moments ago, in response to a question that I asked you, that you recognize there is an evil existing with reference to this marihuana drug.

Dr. Woodward: I will agree as to that.

Mr. Cooper: Then I understood you to say just now, in response to a question by Mr. Robertson of Virginia, that some of the State laws are inadequate and the Federal law is inadequate to meet the problem.

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir.

Mr. Cooper: That is true?

Dr. Woodward: I think that is clear.

Mr. Cooper: And, as you recall, there are two States that have no law at all?

Dr. Woodward: That is the best of my recollection.

Mr. Cooper: Taking your statement, just as you made it here, that the evil exists and that the problem is not being properly met by State laws, do you recommend that we just continue to sit by idly and attempt to do nothing?

Dr. Woodward: No; I do not. I recommend that the Secretary of the Treasury get together with the State people who can enforce the law and procure the enactment of adequate State laws. They can enforce it on the ground.

Mr. Cooper: Years have passed and effective results have not been accomplished in that way.

Dr. Woodward: It has never been done.

Mr. Cooper: And you recommend that the thing for us to do is to just continue the doctrine of laissez-faire and do nothing?

Dr. Woodward: It has never been done.

Mr. McCormack: May I ask the gentleman from Tennessee to ask the witness this question? The doctor has made the statement that the Secretary of the Treasury should cooperate with the States in the passage of legislation, and to enforce that legislation; that is the Federal Government should enforce the legislation. I wish the gentleman would pursue that a little further. What kind of legislation can the Federal Government pass? We have to have some kind of legislation.

Dr. Woodward: It is now the statutory duty of the Secretary of Treasury---

Mr. Cooper: Proceed and answer Mr. McCormack's question, if you will.

Dr. Woodward: It is now the statutory duty of the Secretary of the treasury to cooperate with the several States in procuring the enactment of effective State legislation and to cooperate with them in the enforcement of the Federal and State narcotic laws.

The latter provision particularly was brought about by a practice that prevailed at one time in the Treasury Department, whereby the Bureau or the Division that was then enforcing the Harrison narcotic law, having clear evidence of a violation of State laws, refused to give any aid to the State.

Now, the Secretary of the Treasury has ample authority and it is his duty to give to the States information concerning the violation even of State laws, and to allow his own officers to go into the State courts and before State medical boards to enforce or help to enforce State laws.

Mr. McCormack: That would require legislation.

Dr. Woodward: No; we have it here.

Mr. McCormack: But so far as marihuana is concerned, there would have to be some kind of legislation?

Dr. Woodward: You mean in the States?

Mr. McCormack: No; by the Federal Government to assist the States in enforcing the law.

Dr. Woodward: That is already on the statute books. I quoted from the statute a moment ago, and I am sure you will find it in the record. But the statute does not relate----

Mr. McCormack: I know what you have in mind. But my question is this: In order for the Federal Government to assist the States in enforcement of this legislation aimed at this evil, some action would have to be taken by Congress giving them some enforcement capacity in this particular regard?

Dr. Woodward: No. The law relates to narcotic drugs, not to the Harrison law, and not to opium or coca leaves, but narcotic drugs.

Mr. McCormack: But Congress would have to pass some kind of legislation with reference to marihuana in order to make the law applicable?

Dr. Woodward: No.

Mr. Mccormack: Do you mean to say that the Secretary of the Treasury, or some agent of the Federal Government , can now enforce this law without legislation on the part of Congress?

Dr. Woodward: I say that he can cooperate with the States to secure enactment.

Mr. McCormack: He can cooperate; yes. I used the word "enforce" because you used the word "enforce."

Dr. Woodward: He can give them the aid of his own men, provide them with evidence that his own men collect; to that extent he can aid them in enforcing their laws.

Mr. McCormack: He can do that now without legislation?

Dr. Woodward: He can.

Mr. McCormack: with reference to marihuana?

Dr. Woodward: With reference to any narcotic drug.

Mr. McCormack: Not designated, not stated in the law?

Dr. Woodward: Not stated in the law. here is the statute as it reads----

Mr. McCormack: Can the Federal Government prosecute?

Dr. Woodward: Anyone can prosecute in a criminal court if he presents the evidence. The Federal Government can do it, but ordinarily they will only do it through State officers.

The law reads:

The Secretary of the Treasury shall---

Not may, but shall---

cooperate with the several States in the suppression of the abuse of narcotic drugs in their respective jurisdictions.

At the very time that this was passed, the definition of narcotic drugs was enacted by Congress in connection with admissions to the Federal narcotic farms, and in connection with the definition of addict, the Cannabis habit was included.

Mr. McCormack: Go ahead. Where is the power of the Federal Government to enforce a State criminal statute?

Dr. Woodward: The Secretary of the Treasury--- anyone who presents to a prosecuting officer the evidence can do that.

Mr. McCormack: Doctor, you are not telling me something that I do not know. You are talking about some agent of the Federal Government in his individual capacity doing something, which is entirely different from what I was talking about.

Dr. Woodward: I will read the entire section.

Mr. McCormack: You might just as well tell me that a police officer of the city of Boston, when he goes into court, goes in in his individual capacity as distinguished from his capacity as a police officer.

Dr. Woodward (reading):

The Secretary of the Treasury shall cooperate with the several States in the suppression of the abuse of narcotic drugs in their respective jurisdictions, and to that end he is authorized (1) to cooperate in drafting of such legislation as may be needed, if any, to effect the end named, and (2) to arrange for the exchange of information concerning the use and abuse of narcotic drugs in said States and for cooperation in the institution and prosecution of cases in the courts of the United States and before the licensing boards and courts of the several States.

That is a very specific provision.

Mr. McCormack: Additional legislation with reference to marihuana is necessary.

Dr. Woodward: The term "narcotic drug" covers that in this language.

Mr. Cooper: Coming back for a moment to the question that I asked previously, if the fact remains as you state, that there is this evil present, and it is not being effectively treated or dealt wit, do you not think something should be done, or some attempt should be made, to do something to try to meet that evil?

Dr. Woodward: Certainly.

Mr. Cooper: To what extent is marihuana used by physicians in the country as a beneficial and a helpful drug?

Dr. Woodward: But very little.

Mr. Cooper: Very little?

Dr. Woodward: Very little.

Mr. Cooper: In fact, to such a small extent that the American medical Association's own publication has left it out of the list of useful drugs, has it not?

Dr. Woodward: We probably did. I have not examined "Useful drugs", but we probably did.

Mr. Cooper: Then if it is apparent that this drug is not beneficial and useful in prescriptions given by physicians, but that an illicit traffic has developed in it for injurious and deleterious purposes, you agree that effective methods should be employed to meet that problem, do you not?

Dr. Woodward: I do.

Mr. Lewis: Perhaps you can tell us from memory, Doctor, how many pharmacists there are in the United States.

Dr. Woodward: I cannot.

Mr. Lewis: can you tell us how many physicians?

Dr. Woodward: Approximately 160,000 registered; and probably, as a guess, I would say 120,000 in active practice. We have in the American Medical Association about 100,000 members.

Mr. Lewis: There would not be half as many pharmacists, would there?

Dr. Woodward: Probably not. I have here a form that may be helpful in that regard.

Mr. Lewis: You may supply the figures when you revise your remarks.

Dr. Woodward: The best that I can do is to supply the figures from the Commissioner of Internal Revenue as to the number of registrations under the harrison Narcotic Act.

Mr. Lewis: Do any of the gentlemen at the table know how many pharmacists there are in the country?

Mr. Hester: About 48,000.

Mr. Lewis: And 120,000 practicing physicians?

Dr. Woodward: I suppose there are 100,000 of them practicing. Many of them are retired and not in active practice; many are specialists.

Mr. Lewis: A tax of a dollar on each of them would come to about $148,000. You spoke of a million dollars in taxes a little earlier in the day.

Dr. Woodward: I will supply the figures on which that estimate is based. It is taken directly from official reports, giving the number of potential registrants in each class. If the registrations under this act were in the same proportion as the registrations under the harrison Narcotic Act, the annual tax would be approximately a million dollars a year. That is the best I can do.

Mr. Vinson: Will you break that down for the record?

Dr. Woodward: I will do that very gladly. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

Amount of tax.--- Assuming that all manufacturers, compounders, dispensers, and prescribers of drugs who now register under the harrison Narcotic Act would register under this bill if enacted, and taking the latest report available to show the numbers of persons so registered, the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue for 1935, we deduce the following:

Manufacturers, importers, and compounders (210, at $50).............................. $ 10,500
Wholesale dealers (1,460, at $15)....................................................................... 21,900
Retail dealers (53,687, at $15).......................................................................... 803,305
Practitioners (158,618, at $1)........................................................................... 158,618
________ Total ................................................................................................. 994,323

To this must be added the revenue derived from an unknown number of producers of Cannabis at $25 a year, and from an unknown number of laboratory workers, at $1 a year; also the amount that must be added for registrants who register at more than one place.

The entire amount of this cost will presumably be passed along to legitimate users of Cannabis, chiefly the sick, and the cost of sickness be thus increased. While it may properly be claimed that Cannabis is seldom used in medicine, nevertheless manufacturers, wholesale merchants, retailers, and practitioners will have to pay prescribed taxes in order to be able to supply or to prescribe the drug if and when needed.

Cost of enforcement.--- The sick, along with all other persons, will have to pay through general taxation the cost of enforcing this act, in excess of the taxes collected. Congress should labor under no delusions about the cost of enforcement, if genuine enforcement of the law be attempted. If it is not, the bill will be an idle gesture, an evidence of bad faith on the part of the Government, and had best not be enacted.

Mr. Lewis : Let me ask you this additional question. Judging from the expert medical testimony given here, it appears that it is rarely true, if it is ever true, that a physician would prescribe this drug. He would find other drugs more desirable, more sure in their operation. No physician, then, who did not think well of this drug, would need to take out a special license at all, would he?

Dr. Woodward: He would not have to. Most physicians would want to preserve the right to use it, probably. I do not know how many. The drug, however, is a peculiar drug. The products are uncertain in their action and the composition of the drug is hardly understood. We do not know that the resin which is said to be the active principle is in fact the active principle, but may be broken down into other ingredients, some of which may have one effect and some of which may have another.

According to what has been quoted from this report of Dr. Bouquet there are evidently potentialities in the drug that should not be shut off by adverse legislation. The medical profession and pharmacologists should be left to develop the use of this drug as they see fit.

Mr. Lewis: That is all.

The Chairman: I believe you said at the outset of your statement that the medical use of this drug has fallen off considerably.

Dr. Woodward: Very greatly.

The Chairman: In corroboration of that I have a statement here giving the number of prescriptions and showing the relative use of this drug as compared to other drugs.

In 1885 there were 5 prescriptions out of every 10,000, as fluid extract; in 1895, 11.6; in 1907, 8 out of every 10,000; in 1926, 2.3, and in 1933, the last figures we have 0.4 out of every 10,000.

That correlates your statement that its use as a drug for treatment of diseases, by the medical profession, has greatly fallen off and is on the decrease. The use of it seems to be negligible in the medical profession according to that statement.

On the other hand, it seems that there has been a great increase in the use of it as a narcotic where it has its most dangerous and deleterious effects.

If its use as a medicine has fallen off to a point where it is practically negligible, and its use as a dope has increased until it has become serious and a menace to the public, as has been testified here--- and the testimony here has been that it cause people to lose their mental balance, cause them to become criminals so that they do not seem to realize right from wrong after they become addicts of this drug--- taking into consideration the growth in its injurious effects and its diminution in its use so far as any beneficial effect is concerned, you realize, do you not, that some good may be accomplished by this proposed legislation?

Dr. Woodward: Some legislation; yes, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: If that is admitted, let us get down to a few concrete facts. With the experience in the Bureau of Narcotics and with the State governments trying to enforce laws that are now on the State statute books against the use of this deleterious drug, and the Federal Government has realized that the State laws are ineffective, don't you think some Federal legislation necessary?

Dr. Woodward: I do not.

The Chairman: You do not?

Dr. Woodward: No. I think it is the usual tendency to----

The Chairman: I believe you did say in response to Mr. Cooper that you believed that some legislation of some change in the present law would be helpful. If that be true, why have you not been here before this bill was introduced proposing some remedy for this evil?

Dr. Woodward: Mr. Chairman, I have visited the Commissioner of Narcotics on various occasions----

The Chairman: That is not an answer to my question at all.

Dr. Woodward: I have not been here because----

The Chairman: You are representing the medical association. If your association has realized the necessity, the importance of some legislation--- which you now admit--- why did you wait until this bill was introduced to come here and make mention of it? Why did you not come here voluntarily and suggest to this committee some legislation?

Dr. Woodward: I have talked these matters over many times with the----

The Chairman: That does not do us any good to talk matters over. I have talked over a lot of things. The States do not seem to be able to deal with it effectively, nor is the Federal Government dealing with it at all. Why do you wait until now and then come in here to oppose something that is presented to us. You propose nothing whatever to correct the evil that exists.

Now, I do not like to have a round-about answer, but I would like to have a definite, straight, clean-cut answer to that question.

Dr. Woodward: We do not propose legislation directly to Congress when the same end can be reached through one of the executive departments of the Government.

The Chairman: You admit that it has not been done. You said that you thought some legislation would be helpful. That is what I am trying to hold you down to. Now, why have you not proposed any legislation? That is what I want a clean-cut, definite, clear answer to.

Dr. Woodward: In the first place, it is not a medical addiction that is involved and the data do not come before the medical society. You may absolutely forbid the use of Cannabis by any physician, or the disposition of Cannabis by any pharmacist in the country, and you would not have touched your Cannabis addiction as it stands today, because there is no relation between it and the practice of medicine or pharmacy. It is entirely outside of those two branches.

The Chairman: If the statement that you have just made has any relation to the question that I asked, I just do not have the mind to understand it; I am sorry.

Dr. Woodward: I say that we do not ordinarily come directly to Congress if a department can take care of the matter. I have talked with the Commissioner, with Commissioner Anslinger.

The Chairman: If you want to advise us on legislation, you ought to come here with some constructive proposals, rather than criticism, rather than trying to throw obstacles in the way of something that the Federal Government is trying to do. It has not only an unselfish motive in this, but they have a serious responsibility.

Dr. Woodward: We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for 2 years without any intimation, even, to the profession, that it was being prepared.

The Chairman: Is not the fact that you were not consulted your real objection to this bill?

Dr. Woodward: Not at all.

The Chairman: Just because you were not consulted?

Dr. Woodward: Not at all.

The Chairman: No matter how much good there is in the proposal?

Dr. Woodward: Not at all.

The Chairman: That is not it?

Dr. Woodward: Not at all. We always try to be helpful.

Mr. Vinson: the fact that they took that length of time in the preparation of the bill, what has that to do with the merits of the legislation?

Dr. Woodward: The legislation is impracticable so far as enforcement is concerned, and the same study devoted to State legislation, with 44 State legislatures in session this year would have produced much better results.

Mr. Vinson: If the legislation had been prepared in one day you could have answered what your objection was. But it crops out here just at the end of your testimony that this legislation has been studied for 2 years and prepared in secret.

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. Vinson: What has that fact, if it be a fact, to do with the merits of the legislation, unless you are piqued?

Dr. Woodward: It explains why I am here voicing opposition to the bill that might have been adjusted to meet the needs of the medical profession if we had been consulted at an earlier date. I should have been glad to have cooperated with the Bureau of Narcotics in the preparation of a bill, if an opportunity had been afforded.

Mr. Dingell: The impression I gain from your last remark is that it is only the medical profession that is interested in this bill; but what about the 125,000,000 people in this country? This is not only a bill that the medical profession is interested in, or that the American Medical Association is interested in, but all of the people are interested in it. Incidentally, I would like to ask how many doctors are members of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Woodward: Approximately 100,000.

Mr. Dingell: That many are members of the American Medical Association?

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir.

Mr. Dingell: How many doctors are there in the United States?

Dr. Woodward: Probably 140,000 or 150,000, or there may be 160,000.

Mr. Dingell: Are we to understand that the medical men of the State of Michigan, or the medical profession in Wayne County, or the medical association of Detroit, are opposed to this legislation?

Dr. Woodward: I do not know. No medical man would identify this bill with medicine until he read it through, because marihuana is not a drug.

Mr. Dingell: Please tell me this: What effort has been made in my State through the medical association to protect the school children and the unfortunate people who are falling victims to this habit? I ask that question since we are talking about controlling it through the States. I want to know what has been done by the State of Michigan and members of the medical profession to give protection intended by this bill.

Dr. Woodward: It is, of course, impossible for me to say just what has been done in any particular State; but in the Michigan laws of 1931, chapter 173, they do regulate the production and distribution of Cannabis indica. .

Mr. Dingell: What kind of regulation is that?

Dr. Woodward: I do not have the law here.

Mr. Dingell: Can you tell me whether that legislation was at that time sponsored by the medical association of my State?

Dr. Woodward: I do not know. I cannot carry all of those details in my mind. You understand that marihuana is simply a name given Cannabis. It is a mongrel word brought in from Mexico. It is a popular term to indicate Cannabis, like "coke" is used to indicate cocaine, and as "dope" is used to indicate opium.

Mr. Dingell: We know that it is a habit that is spreading, particularly among youngsters. We learn that from the pages of the newspapers. You say that Michigan has a law regulating it. We have a State law, but we do not seem to be able to get anywhere with it, because, as I have said, the habit is growing. The number of victims is increasing each year.

Dr. Woodward: There is no evidence of that.

Mr. Dingell: I have not been impressed by your testimony here as reflecting the sentiment of the high­class members of the medical profession in my State. I am confident that the medical profession in the State of Michigan, and in Wayne County particularly, or in my district, will subscribe wholeheartedly to any law that will suppress this thing, despite the fact that there is a $1 tax imposed.

Dr. Woodward: If there was any law that would absolutely suppress the thing, perhaps that is true, but when the law simply contains provisions that impose a useless expense, and does not accomplish the result----

Mr. Dingell (interposing): That is simply your personal opinion. This is kindred to the opinion you entertained with reference to the harrison Narcotics Act.

Dr. Woodward: If we had been asked to cooperate in drafting it----

Mr. Dingell: You are not cooperating in this at all.

Dr. Woodward: As a matter of fact, it does not serve to suppress the use of opium and cocaine.

Mr. Dingell: The medical profession should be doing its utmost to aid in the suppression of this curse that is eating the very vitals of the nation.

Dr. Woodward: They are.

Mr. Dingell: Are you not simply piqued because you were not consulted in the drafting of this bill?

Dr. Woodward: That is not the case at all. I said in explaining why I was here that the measure should have been discussed and an expression of opinion obtained before the Treasury Department brought this bill before the Congress of the United States, so that it would be in a form that would be acceptable, with as few differences of opinion as possible.

Mr. Cooper: With all due respect to you and for your appearance here, is it not a fact that you are peeved because you were not called in and consulted in the drafting of the bill?

Dr. Woodward: Not in the least. I have drafted too many bills to be peeved about that.

Mr. McCormack: There is no question that the drug habit has been increasing rapidly in recent years.

Dr. Woodward: There is no evidence to show whether or not it has been.

Mr. McCormack: In your opinion, has it increased?

Dr. Woodward: I should say it has increased slightly. Newspaper exploitation of the habit has done more to increase it than anything else.

Mr. McCormack: It is likely to increase further unless some effort is made to suppress it.

Dr. Woodward: I do not know. The exploitation tempts young men and women to venture into the habit.

Mr. McCormack: At any event, it is a drug.

Dr. Woodward: Cannabis indica. is a drug; yes.

Mr. McCormack: It is used, we were told, by 200,000,000 people throughout the world. All I know is what I have read about it.You realize that we are confronted with a situation where we are dealing with a drug produced in the United States?

Dr. Woodward: Yes.

Mr. McCormack: While opium and coco leaves are not produced here.

Dr. Woodward: No.

Mr. McCormack: In other words, the Harrison Narcotics Act really confines itself to imports.

Dr. Woodward: No, sir, it regulates production, too.

Mr. McCormack: It regulates production, but the production it regulates is confined to drugs that are imported into this country.

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir.

Mr. McCormack: There is no opium grown here.

Dr. Woodward: No, sir.

Mr. McCormack: An no coca leaves are grown here.

Dr. Woodward: No, sir.

Mr. McCormack: So that the Harrison Narcotics Act, in its practical operation concerns itself, in the first instance, with a drug that is imported into this country.

Dr. Woodward: In the first instance; yes, sir.

Mr. McCormack: In this case, we have in the first instance a drug that is produced in this country.

Dr. Woodward: No, sir.

Mr. McCormack: It is grown here.

Dr. Woodward: It is grown somewhat here.

Mr. McCormack: Let me see if I understand your position: I have listened very carefully to your statement . You take the position that this drug habit is not of any benefit to the medical profession.

Dr. Woodward: I think that is universally admitted.

Mr. McCormack: This legislation should be directed toward the source of the evil. The medical profession is not involved in the source of supply so far as the use is concerned. Is that right?

Dr. Woodward: Yes; that is right. We have no objection to the registration fee under the Harrison Narcotic Act.

Mr. McCormack: You say you have no objection to registration under the Harrison Narcotic Act?

Dr. Woodward: No, sir; nor even in the case of Cannabis.

Mr. McCormack: While you object to the registration under this act, you do not object to registration under the Harrison Narcotics Act?

Dr. Woodward: No, Sir.

Mr. McCormack: You are just now beginning to oppose registration.

Dr. Woodward: No, sir.

Mr. McCormack: Assuming that this bill was amended to permit the Secretary of the Treasury to put the medical profession under reasonable regulations, what would be your opposition to the bill?

Dr. Woodward: I am quite sure we could not object to that.

Mr. McCormack: Then your objection would be removed.

Dr. Woodward: You could go a step further, and require the registration and recording of sales of Cannabis under the harrison Narcotics Act. I am not inclined to think there would be any objection to that at all.

Mr. McCormack: I am not including the Harrison Narcotics Act in my question, but my question was confined to this bill. Assuming that an amendment was made to this bill whereby the Secretary of the Treasury might prescribe regulations which would be beneficial to the medical profession, or that would be considered beneficial by the medical profession, would I be justified in assuming that your main objection to this particular bill would be removed?

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir; you would.

Mr. Dingell: Going back to that part of your testimony wherein you mentioned the matter of registration, was it your testimony that the medical profession, so far as you can determine, is more than willing to cooperate in bringing about the suppression of this drug, or, more specifically, the traffic in marihuana; and does your sole objection rest upon the point that the bill requires an additional registration, additional forms, and the taking up of additional precious time of physicians ; and that further than that, if this practice could be regulated by an amendment to the harrison narcotics Act there would be no objection on the part of the medical profession to filling out new amended forms pertaining to both marihuana and narcotics?

Dr. Woodward: I believe that if that had been done there would not have been a single objection raised to it.In my opinion, no voice would have been raised against legislation of that kind.

Mr. Dingell: You think that with reasonable regulations we would have the fullest cooperation of the medical profession?

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Do you appear in the capacity of a medical expert, a legal expert, or a legislative expert, or in all three capacities?

Dr. Woodward: My profession is that of a practitioner of medicine and of legal medicine. I have lectured on legal medicine as a lawyer and doctor. I have combine the two. If you want to class me as an expert, you might class me as a medical-legal expert.

The Chairman: I would like to read a quotation from a recent editorial in the Washington Times:

The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities.

The Nation is almost defenseless against it, having no Federal laws to cope with it and virtually no organized campaign for combating it.

The result is tragic.

School children are the prey of peddlers who infest school neighborhoods.

High school boys and girls buy the destructive weed without knowledge of its capacity of harm, and conscienceless dealers sell it with impunity.

This is a national problem, and it must have national attention.

The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a deadly drug, and American children must be protected against it.

That is a pretty severe indictment. They say it is a national question and that it requires effective legislation. Of course, in a general way, you have responded to all of these statements; but that indicates very clearly that it is an evil of such magnitude that it is recognized by the press of the country as such.

The Washington Post had this to say recently in an editorial:

With a Federal law on the books, a more ambitious attack can be launched. It is time to wipe out the evil before it potentiates for national degeneracy become more apparent. The legislation just introduced in Congress by Representative Doughton would further this end. Its speedy passage is desirable.

As I understand it, you do not agree with that.

Dr. Woodward: I believe there is addiction, and I believe there is a temptation to children.

The Chairman: It is on the increase, is it not?

Dr. Woodward: Probably, but we do not know.

The Chairman: The public authorities dealing with this evil, the State authorities and Federal authorities, say that they need further legislation in order to protect the people from its insidious influence and effects. Under those conditions, do you not believe that congress should try to do something?

Dr. Woodward: I think something should be done, but it is only a question of what should be done.

The Chairman: You stated awhile ago that you believed this law would be ineffective. Of course, the law against carrying concealed weapons, designed to protect people against criminals is not entirely effective, but you would not advocate the repeal of the law. The laws against prostitution and murder are not entirely effective, but without legislative control we would be at the mercy of the criminal class, and we would have no civilization whatever.

Dr. Woodward: I realize that.

The Chairman: I believe you stated that you sponsored the Copeland bill.

Dr. Woodward: I said that the present Copeland bill was the best pending food bill. I said it was the best of the lot.

The Chairman: Did you have anything to do with the preparation of the Copeland Bill?

Dr. Woodward: I appeared before the committee from time to time and submitted a memorandum.

The Chairman: But they did not adopt your views.

Dr. Woodward: No, sir.

The Chairman: You said it was woefully defective, but that it was the best you have seen.

Dr. Woodward: Yes, sir; I sent to every Member of the House of representatives a memorandum showing by section, page, and line just wherein it fails, and I think that anyone who studied the memorandum will agree with me.

The Chairman: But it is woefully ineffective.

Dr. Woodward: With respect to drugs and therapeutic devices; yes, sir.

The Chairman: The next witness is Dr. S. L. Hilton.

STATEMENT OF DR. S. L. HILTON REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN PHARMACEUTICAL ASSOCIATION

Dr. Hilton: I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that we are not opposing this legislation. We are in favor of any legislation that will correct anything pertaining to habit-forming drugs, but we are opposed to two sections of this bill. One is the section requiring the pharmacists of this country to take out a $15 registration license. The Harrison Narcotics Act only requires pharmacists to take out a $3 license where they are dealing with opium, coco leaves, their preparations, salts, and derivatives. There is one thousand times as much of those drugs used as there is of Cannabis indica..

Further on in this bill there is a provision in section 6 (a), which says:

Except in pursuance of a written order of the person to whom such marihuana is transferred, on a form to be issued in blank for that purpose by the Secretary.

Now, further over in section 6 it provides---

Each order form sold by a collector shall be prepared by him and shall include an original and two copies, any one of which shall be admissible in evidence as an original. The original and one copy shall be given by the collector to the purchaser thereof.

Now, I take it that means when we want to purchase any preparation of Cannabis indica., we must take the time to go to the collector, because the collector has to fill out that form. We have got to pay a tax of $1 per ounce for whatever we purchase. In my case, located here in the city of Washington, it would mean a loss from business of 3 hours time; but if you take a place in Pennsylvania or Maryland, where there are two or three drug stores in a town, with no deputy collector or collector there, the druggist would have to go to Baltimore, losing an entire day. The average business done by a retail drug store in the United States is less than $30,000 a year. Many of them have no clerks; and if they want to purchase this drug they would have to hire somebody to keep the store for that day and pay him for that day. We believe that the tax is unjust and unreasonable so far as retail pharmacists are concerned.

I have made a careful analysis cover 25,000 prescriptions since we learned of this bill, and found that there were only 20 prescriptions in the 25,000 containing Cannabis indica.. . Now, in the event this bill becomes law, I will destroy all of it so I will not have to register and will not have to pay that extra tax. in order to avoid it, I will refuse to fill prescriptions containing Cannabis indica. , because I think it is clearly shown in my case, and from the various drug services which i could quote, that Cannabis indica. is a useless medicament, and is used only about 4 times in 10,000 prescriptions. It seems to me that it is only reasonable that this should be changed.

The Chairman: Have you discussed this with Mr. Hester?

Dr. Hilton: I discussed it with Mr. Tipton, and I think Mr. Tipton is decidedly in favor of reducing that fee.

I want to point out the inconsistency in the section dealing with order forms: In one case it says the Secretary of the Treasury can issue the form in blank, while in another case it says that you must go to the collector, and that the order form shall be prepared by him.

Mr. Vinson: How is that done under the Harrison Narcotics Act?

Dr. Hilton: Under the Harrison Narcotics Act we purchase from the collector a book of 10 order forms. We write for them, and prepare the forms. That is the retail form. There is a wholesale license which they grant. We supply narcotics on forms to physicians. In my case, I have quite a large clientele among physicians, and we must purchase those order forms. consequently, I keep more than 10 at a time. We fill them out in ink or with indelible pencil.

Mr. Vinson: It would not take any longer to get an order form for marijuana than to get an order form for narcotics. That section seems to be objectionable to you.

Dr. Hilton: I think that provision should be stricken from the bill.

Mr. Vinson: You get the forms from the collector under the Harrison Act.

Dr. Hilton: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: It would not take any longer time to get a form for marihuana than for narcotics under the Harrison Act.

Dr. Hilton: If they were issued in blank, that is true, but if the were issued under this provision, in subsection (d), it would take a longer time, because the collector must fill it out. you must get it from the collector and pay a fee.

Mr. Vinson: Under one section, you say, the collector fills out the form.

Dr. Hilton: Yes, sir.

Mr. Vinson: Under the Harrison Act, it is issued in blank.

Dr. Hilton: Yes, sir. Personally, i believe that the members of our association are of the opinion that the Harrison Narcotic Act, if amended properly, could take care of marihuana, and then we would have one registration and one order form.

Mr. Vinson: You do not want to endanger the Harrison Act in any way?

Dr. Hilton: Certainly not, and I do not believe that would endanger the Harrison Act, if the amendment was properly drawn.

Mr. Vinson: It is hard to deal with that.

Dr. Hilton: That is true, but we have five to four decisions by the Supreme Court that sustains this law.

Mr. Vinson: And sometimes they change back again.

Dr. Hilton: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: I assume that you recognize this evil.

Dr. Hilton: We certainly do.

The Chairman: you recognize the fact that some legislation on the subject is needed.

Dr. Hilton: We want to cooperate by doing anything we can to stamp it out.

The Chairman: I would suggest that you confer with Mr. anslinger and Mr. Hester, and I am sure that if you have a helpful amendment, we can work it out.

Mr. Vinson: Personally, I do not see any reason why any different treatment should be given an order form for marihuana than is given for narcotics. there may be some reason, but personally, I do not see any reason for it.

Dr. Hilton: We cannot see any reason for it.

The Chairman: We thank you very much for your appearance before the committee.

We will now take a recess to meet tomorrow at 10 o'clock in executive session.

(Thereupon, the committee took a recess, to meet tomorrow, Wednesday, may 5, 1937, at 10 a.m., in executive session.)

ADDENDA

Letter from Mrs. hamilton Wright, special representative, Bureau of Narcotics.

Treasury Department
Bureau of Narcotics
Washington, May 7, 1937.

Hon. A. W. Robertson.

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

Dear sir: I am surprised there should be any opposition to the passage of the Doughton bill. Anyone with a knowledge of the seriousness of the drug evil should welcome the attempt to curb one of the most recent and dangerous drugs that is menacing the country today.

Marihuana is the American form of the familiar and insidious hashish or Indian hemp which has been associated in the Orient with crime for many centuries. We know it as the ordinary hempweed which can be grown in any backyard in any State in the Union. Its use as a stimulant or narcotic is, however, of recent date.

It was introduced about 10 years ago by Mexican peddlers in the form of cigarettes.its use has spread like wildfire and is associated with crime in its most vicious aspects. Every attempt to curb and eradicate this drug should be encouraged and the Doughton bill is a distinct contribution to the fight against dangerous drugs. It should be realized that the drug evil is no longer an isolated problem but is closely connected with the epidemic of crime that is destroying our safety at home and our good name abroad. A recent authoritative report from California states that 70 percent of the criminals in that state are drug addicts.

The drug evil cannot be temporized with any more than smallpox or yellow fever. It must be checked at the start and not allowed to spread. The Doughton bill represents the "ounce of prevention", and is already heartily approved by the Federal Government, the big women organizations, and I assumed by all intelligent men and women who have the health and safety of the people of the United States at heart. I sincerely hope the bill will be passed as speedily as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth W. Wright,

(Mrs.) Hamilton Wright,

Special Representative, Bureau of Narcotics.