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THE TRAFFIC
by H. J. ANSLINGER United States Commissioner of Narcotics And WILLIAM F. TOMPKINS United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey Former Chairman, Legislative Commission to Study Narcotics, General Assembly of New Jersey
Page iv *************** Copyright, 1953, by Funk & Wagnalls, Company
The Traffic in Narcotics Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 53-6984 Copyright under the articles of the Copyright Convention of the Pan American Republics and the United States. Printed in the United States of America *************** CONTENTS
Page v PREFACE THAT THERE IS A PRESENT PROBLEM IN NARCOTICS IS WELL EVIDENCED by the continued stream of stories that appear in the daily press and in other journals---stories of teen-age addiction, of smuggling rings, of brutal crime with narcotics and drugs as a concomitant. The reports are in fact not particularly new in substance, nor are they peculiarly an attribute of our own times. But there has been too long an attitude of withdrawal from discussion of unpleasant topics on the part of the general public resulting, most unfortunately, in an almost total unawareness of many serious social problems. That attitude has undergone a notable change with a generation that has been embroiled in two world wars and that has felt the tremendous impact of the technological advances reflected in the art of modem communication, whether used with objectivity or as propaganda. No longer does the general public reject discussion of problems that it recognizes as a true part of its social responsibility. It has come to feel that what benefits the whole must inherently benefit the individual, that what has become a problem for the individual may well become a serious problem for the community. One of these Problems of which there is an awakening social awareness is that of narcotics. One of the recognized ways of solving a basic problem is to endeavor to understand it. The Traffic in Narcotics is an attempt to present the facts, to review, if you will, the evidence, and to reach some conclusions that may help in establishing sane, progressive, and healthy public attitudes and public action. It is earnestly hoped that those in the professions who are often personally concerned with one or another aspect of this
Page vi PREFACE problem will find here helpful information and perhaps a wider appreciation of just what they have to contribute to the eventual control and amelioration, if not complete elimination, of this source of human degradation.
That the reader may gain an understanding of the terms involved and just what the narcotic drugs are, their origins and principal characteristics are reviewed in a generally non-technical but sufficiently detailed way. Included, of course, are the various derivatives and the synthetic drugs which have made their appearance from the laboratory. There follows discussion of the international scene. This is of major importance in any understanding of the subject, as it covers some forty-four years of international efforts, going back to 1909. No discussion would be complete without this survey, which is reflected in the body of laws operative in the United States, Canada, and many other countries in the pattern of international cooperation. To highlight the political factor inherent in the narcotics traffic, excerpts from several recent official discussions of the Commission on Narcotics of the United Nations illustrate points of conflict as well as present for review a public record not often accessible to the general reader. Other chapters present the national, State, and local levels of control and law enforcement. Case histories are primarily used to characterize the scope of the traffic in its economic and social implications both for the individual and for the community. Particular attention is called to the account of the medical aspects and of the treatment of the addict. Both the general reader and the general medical practitioner will find here, it is believed, much that is genuinely informative and encouraging in the broad sense. The authors are grateful in being able to present the outstanding work of their colleagues in tangent fields of research and public service.
Page vii PREFACE For the legislators in the various governmental units and for those in positions of authority the presentation of the Uniform Narcotics Drug Act will prove helpful in furthering the cause of narcotics control and interstate cooperation. This model law is reprinted in its entirety for reference in the Appendix. It has been with genuine regret that any discussion of the role of education has not been found possible in this book. It would appear that as yet no consensus has developed among educators that would indicate any discernible trend for or against inclusion in the curricula or cocurricula. However, that there is here a subject of sufficient import to the community and to the individual suggests that the problem will bear careful watching and consideration by those who guide the youth of the nation in their formative years, their susceptible years. In this connection it is to be observed that the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in 1951, following a League of Nations report of 1936, recommended "that propaganda in schools" could be used in certain areas of addiction and that "in other countries where it is of more sporadic character (Europe and North America), such measures would be dangerous . . ." Throughout The Traffic in Narcotics the fact that there is a grave moral problem involved is clearly in evidence. It need not be labored here. Whether it is political, economic, or social morality the reader will quickly decide for himself. But that it is some man or woman, some child, who is the victim, is an inescapable conclusion. And it is this individual who must never be lost sight of in the consideration of the broader aspects of the problem. The fact that millions of sufferers have had their pain assuaged throughout the ages by the opiates lessens not one whit the importance of a full understanding of the problem of narcotics and of the dissipation of public and individual ignorance. This understanding involves a knowledge of how the trafficker in narcotics operates, of what is being done to stop him and what still remains to be accomplished, and of why the citizen must not turn aside and rely on another to be the good Samaritan. For drug addiction is murder on the instalment plan. The authors are convinced that though the situation today is disquieting despite forty-four years of striving for a system of
Page viii PREFACE international control, it would have been disastrous without those years of effort. It is a little known and too seldom mentioned fact that there is one important field of international diplomacy in which the United States Government has for several decades met with amazing and continuing success. There have been few more dramatic or more fruitful efforts at international collaboration than those in the field of the control of narcotic drugs. The results obtained are outstanding. In this book three essentials have been stressed: international cooperation, compulsory hospitalization for the addict, and stringent penalties for the trafficker in narcotics. These are immediate steps toward the final goal. It should be said by way of dedication that this study is presented with the sincere hope that it might contribute something of genuine value to an alerted general public and to those organizations within it which strive so consistently in the public weal: to the lawmaker who faces the problem of establishing public policy; to the law enforcement officers on all levels who serve to protect the public as well as to apprehend the criminal; to the physician in whose hands lies the gravest responsibility of use and abuse and of beneficent cure; to the pharmacist who dispenses the drugs for good or evil; to the social worker who must process his "cases" with humanity and broad understanding; to the educator who shares the responsibility in the guidance of youth; to the scientist whose researches are so important; and to all those who labor in the field of international cooperation. THE AUTHORS
Page ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT FOR ASSISTANCE IS EXTENDED TO: Dr. Nathan B. Eddy, National Institutes of Health Dr. Lyndon F. Small, National Institutes of Health Dr. Harris Isbell, Director of Addiction Research Center, U. S. Public Health Service Hospital, Lexington, Kentucky Dr. Pablo Wolff, Expert Committee on Drugs Liable to Produce Addiction, World Health Organization Honorable William T. McCarthy, Federal Judge. Boston Massachusetts Honorable Twain Michelsen, Superior Court Judge, San Francisco, California Mr. R. S. S. Wilson, former Superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Mr. Herbert L. May, President, Permanent Opium Board, United Nations Colonel C. H. L. Sharman, President, Supervisory Body, United Nations Dr. Tsungming To, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Formosa Detective Leonard J. Iatesta, Narcotic Squad, New Jersey State Police Mr. D. Knowlton Read, Chairman, Narcotics Commission, American Prison Association Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana Congressman Gordon Canfield of New Jersey Congressman Cecil R. King of California
Page xi
CONTENTS
I
THE PATTERN OF MAN'S USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS THE POPPY, THE SYMBOL OF SLEEP AND DEATH, IS AGE-OLD IN THE lore of antiquity. On the clay tablets of the Sumerians it was recorded that the juice of the poppy was "collected in the early morning," perhaps before the Eastern sun should have tempered its anodyne. This people of the land of Sumer in lower Mesopotamia--- now the Arab kingdom of Iraq--- cultivated the poppy plant five thousand years B.C. in order to extract its juice; gil was the name they gave it which translated means joy or rejoicing, and this name is still used today for opium in some parts of the world. It was the Babylonians, inheritors of the Sumerian civilization, who, with their expanding empire, spread the knowledge of the poppy's medicinal properties eastward to Persia and westward to Egypt where its use as a remedy for human ailments was known as early as 1550 B.C. The Greeks, too, early learned its uses, for it is from their word, opion, juice of the poppy, that our Latinized word comes. The poppy was old in Greek legend before Homer in the Iliad, recounting a decoction of it used by Helen Of Troy, said that it had the power of "inducing forgetfulness of pain and the sense of evil." In the fourth century B.C. Hippocrates of Cos thought well of it and recommended "drinkIng the juice of the white poppy mixed with the seed of the nettle." From then on many well-known writers extolled with enthusiasm the virtues of confections containing opium, and the use Page 1
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 2 of the therapeutic drug spread quickly through the Roman world, with itinerant quacks the means of popularizing it for a variety of lesser ailments. The rise of Mohammedanism provided another stimulus with its concept of the separateness of the spiritual and physical nature. This doctrine permitted a freer approach to scientific observation and analysis, much less trammeled by the philosophic and religious mores of their contemporaries. Arabic doctors, both Moslem and Christian, were prodigal in the use of opium in their cures; among others, it became used as a specific for diarrhea and scores died of overdosage of the drug. It can be said, in passing, that until the twelfth century the use of opium was largely confined to medicinal purposes. It was during the tenth century that knowledge of the famed Arabic pharmaeopoeia was taken to China by Arab traders and traveling physicians and with them went the drug itself. In China, too, it was first used as a remedy for dysentery. Later its use became wide-spread when it was found that it enabled a teeming people to exist on very little food during times of famine, a problem current throughout Chinese history. Eastward from its ancient home through Persia to India was another road the poppy traveled to become naturalized. That it thrived there is evidenced by the Portuguese Barbosa, companion and friend of Magellan, who in 1511 could write of the "opium which the most of the Moors and Indians eat." It is also thought that, because their religion forbade the use of alcohol, the Brahmin priesthood of India became users of opium as a sublimating substitute. To India Chinese junks sailed the long, arduous voyage around the Malayan peninsula to secure the opium that became the beginnings of the "traffic" as we use the word today. As the eighteenth century approached, a rapid increase in the importation of opium began through the hands of the Portuguese, and still later through the agency of the famous--- or infamous--- East India Company. Opium was not unknown in western Europe. A famous physician climbed the proverbial ladder of success in the 1500's as a result of his bold dosages of the drug for his patients. That the drug would resist poison, deafness, asthma., coughing, colic,
MAN'S USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 3 jaundice, fever, leprosy, female troubles, and melancholy was among the claims of these practitioners of the healing arts. Turner, first English herbalist, in 1551 says of the poppy, "how excellent is that flower in the disease of the pleurisie." And again quaintly says of an over-dosed patient, "Put stynkynge thynges unto hys nose," to awaken him. FOREIGN MUD At first used medicinally in China, opium was no serious social problem--- with the exception of the unaccounted-for deaths from overdosage--- until a Manchu emperor from the North conquered Amoy, in Fukien Province on the coast, and the island of Formosa in 1683, and his soldiers learned of the "delight" of opium smoking from the inhabitants there. Still it was not a serious menace to Chinese civilization until European traders began their work of exploitation. Portuguese traders from their footholds in India were the first of these Western traffickers; their initial freight of 200 chests in 1729 increased fivefold within the ensuing forty years. Increasing use of the drug created a widening demand for it among the Chinese and eventually the wall of Chinese isolation was broken through by the British who secured the open-door policy for trade. The British-chartered East India Company and its successors (1600-1874) sold freely to Chinese merchants. By 1796--- short sixty years-the welfare of the Chinese people was menaced seriously by what, a century before, had been considered "a minor article of domestic commerce." The Emperor Yung Chen was the first to issue an edict against the habit-forming smoke. His proclamation, initiating a series of laws against opium smoking, said nothing, however, about the steady tide of opium flooding China from foreign ports. Finally, in 1800, the problem waxed grave in China, and the importation and the cultivation of the opium poppy were prohibited. But in spite of the law, the opium trade continued, growing unabated. "How much foreign mud [opium] do you have on board?" The speaker--- a corrupt Chinese port official; the person to whom the inquiry was directed-the captain of a British clipper; the year---
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 4 1834; the place--- the deck of the clipper, anchored some five hundred yards off Swatow. This scene was repeated innumerable times at ports up and down the China coast in the early 1830's. It was not long before the foreign mud became the casus belli for the Opium War between Great Britain and China which was terminated by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. A résumé of the first great traffic in opium and its impact upon subsequent events provides an excellent backdrop for the situation today. BACKGROUND FOR WAR In the early days of the eighteenth century the British, following the venturesome Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish had established a trading base at Canton where they soon outstripped in activity their European competitors. From the beginning and, in fact until the Treaty of Nanking abrogated them, the trade of the British, together, with that of other Europeans, was restricted by regulations devised by the Chinese to keep the foreigners at arm's length, yet permitting the Chinese to continue to export their teas and silks and to receive desired English goods. The export of Chinese commodities far exceeded the imports of British goods and this resulted in an adverse cash balance to the British traders.. Initially these debits had been discharged by silver payments, but by the close of the nineteenth century there was found a new commodity that balanced the books and ultimately provoked a war; that commodity was opium. The East India Company had exercised a controlling government-sponsored monopoly of all British-Asiatic trade since the early 1600's. The cultivation of opium in India was included in this monopoly. The entire Indian crop was sold to independent merchants at the famous Calcutta auctions. In turn, these firms shipped opium to the China coast where, with the aid of dishonest Chinese officials, it was smuggled into the country. This illicit opium traffic, it has been estimated, was several times as great as all the legal trade combined. A clear picture is presented by relating how Anglo-Chinese
MAN'S USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 5 trade operated around the 1830's. Imported into China through legal channels were chiefly cotton and woolen goods worth approximately three million dollars. British interests, however, were exporting from China almost five times that amount in tea and silk and, in addition to and despite this adverse trade balance, were actually exporting Chinese silver, whereas normally they should have been importing it to pay the trade balance between their exports and imports. By what device was this accomplished? The opium traffic provided the means. Under the aegis of the East India Company the independent trading companies would export a few million dollars worth of tea and import many times that amount in opium, thus acquiring large silver balances in their favor. These firms then gave to the East India Company the use of these balances and in return received payment in London. Thus, because the trade balance was tilted in their favor by the opium revenue, British interests were enabled to export considerable silver from China. The East India Company had obtained virtually a world monopoly of opium due to their control of its cultivation in India, and the funds derived from the yearly auctions at Calcutta comprised a very large and important part of Indian state revenues. This government-granted monopoly was thus the source of a vicious traffic, which the Crown could have effectively delimited, had it so desired, by limiting cultivation in India and prohibiting export. This course, however, would have seriously impaired Indian revenues. In addition to Indian revenues, the opium trade provided the wherewithal to finance the tea and silk exports from China, and all this was what the mercantile group had carefully encouraged and nurtured and which ultimately was to open up China to free trade. Speaking of the merchants, while their main avowed intent was to open up China to free trade without burdensome restrictions, the fact remained that such a result could only be, and ultimately was, a real boon to the opium traffic, a fact which should not escape unnoticed. Following minor outbreaks and incidents and futile attempts to compromise the situation, the whole problem really started to localize in early 1839. The Chinese Emperor conferred with one
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 6 Lin Tsê hsü, the governor-general of a neighboring province, a completely honest official who had been most successful in suppressing the traffic within his own jurisdiction. The Emperor, concerned both because he received no customs income from the illegal traffic in Indian opium and also because too much silver was leaving the country, was most receptive to the Lin plan for terminating the opium traffic. Lin's solution was twofold: first, to use whatever pressure was necessary, and second, in order to prevent further traffic in opium, to compel the British to submit to the jurisdiction of the Chinese courts and to accept the death penalty upon conviction if any merchant was found to have violated the Chinese opium laws. Unfortunately for Lin, he grossly underestimated both the rising power and the reaction of the British Government to the idea of being forced to terminate its opium traffic without gaining any other compensating concession. The Emperor was convinced, however, that it was the correct course to pursue and accordingly appointed Lin commissioner to Canton with the powers necessary to stamp out the opium traffic. Immediately after Lin's arrival at Canton he issued an edict which required that all opium stocks be surrendered within three days, and furthermore that bonds be posted guaranteeing no future imports of opium, and, if any were imported, that the offending individual submit to a Chinese court trial and death by strangling on conviction; the penalty for non-compliance--- the closing down of all trade with China plus the use of force by its army and navy. The pressure was on; a crisis had arrived. There was considerable demurring on the part of the merchants; additional sanctions by Lin; an attempt to bargain by the merchants; and finally, threats of death to some members of the mercantile community. To this gradual and effective pressure the chief superintendent of the British Colony, a Captain Elliot, finally succumbed since he feared for the lives and safety of the resident merchants and their families. He, therefore, was forced to order that all of the opium be surrendered with the promise that the British Government would then indemnify the merchants for their loss. The opium was turned over and destroyed. This act, of itself, undeniably constituted complete and full recognition
MAN'S USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 7 by the British Government of the illegality of the opium traffic. However, this act of recognition only rounded out the picture because Parliament at London had already been studying the problem and concluded it was unwise to abandon this important and lucrative source of revenue. THE OPIUM WAR, 1840-1842 Such was the situation when the Foreign Minister, Lord Palmerston, prepared to debate the strained Chinese situation in Parliament. Palmerston, under the tutelage of William Jardine, the greatest and most influential of the opium smugglers, expressed a desire that the China market remain open and that he was prepared to employ military force to accomplish it. However, such a war could never be sold to the British people on the basis of Lin's seizure of the opium. The only tactical ground would be a flag-waving appeal to Britain's honor with the hope that all mention of opium would be suppressed. Furthermore, the Chinese could then be forced to reimburse for the opium (which Lin had seized and for which Captain Elliot had agreed, in the name of his Government, to indemnify the British merchants), for it was a certainty that this indemnity consisting of several million pounds sterling, would never be approved by the man in the street if it were to come from his own pockets. Suffice it to say and without relating the intricacies of the parliamentary debate, Palmerston prevailed by a narrow margin and the war was on. No purpose is served by describing the war itself, which resulted in an overwhelming victory for the English, who then proceeded to dictate the Treaty of Nanking, of August 29, 1842. Under the terms of the treaty five ports, Shanghai, Canton, Foochow, Amoy, and Ningpo, were opened to free trade; the Chinese were required to pay for the opium which Commissioner Lin had seized; Hong Kong was ceded to England; and the Chinese were compelled to bear the cost of the British expedition. The merchants' group had now succeeded. China was opened to free commerce, and the opium traffic continued to flourish because of its tremendous benefit to Indian revenues. Within ten
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 8 years after the war its volume increased almost threefold, and until the traffic was finally terminated by an agreement of May 8, 1911, it continued to be an important source of revenue. NOT WITHOUT FAULT While British policy in connection with this pernicious traffic was inexcusable and indefensible, the fact should not be overlooked that the policy of American officials and merchant-traders in the Far East greatly paralleled that of the British. Commodore Kearney, visiting Hong Kong in 1842, found abundant evidence of American participation in the opium traffic. Two American companies, Russell & Company and Augustine Heard & Company, both of Boston, were large participants, as were other Americans. While American merchants condemned the opium traffic during the critical period of 1839, by 1853 American traders were again enmeshed in the traffic. The United States Commissioner to China, Humphrey Marshall, was shocked at "the wholesale system of smuggling that is carried on both under the English and American flags, almost in view of Chinese ports, and which in my opinion amounts to a gross and abominable violation of our treaties (in their spirit) with this government [China]." William B. Reed, in 1858, calculated that approximately one fifth of the opium entering Shanghai was carried by American ships. It is thus patent that Americans were as well involved in this disgraceful business, and accordingly must share the onus with the British. TOOL OF WAR Opium has become an effective and subtle tool of war. The second time China was impregnated with it was before World War II, when Japan was preparing for its invasion of the Chinese mainland and correctly had estimated the power the drug had of undermining the Chinese people, both morally and physically. The Japanese had coldly calculated its devastating value as forerunner to an advancing army; long before the steel missiles began
MAN'S USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 9 to fly, opium pellets were sent as a vanguard of the military attack. Thus there was carried on what can be called a "chemical" warfare against the Chinese. It was the invasion of the country by drugs which some say is just as destructive as a whole series of successful bombing raids. Drugs can all too thoroughly demoralize a nation and expedite its conquest. Its effectiveness was visible wherever the Japanese army had been. A systematic attempt was undertaken to undermine the Chinese population by making new addicts and by encouraging participation again by those who had once been addicted. Poppy cultivation was re-introduced and followed up by the establishment of a drug factory. The Japanese left no effort unattended. The story of opium was not a new one to the Chinese and with it they could perhaps deal, but heroin and morphine were different. The first hypodermic syringe of morphine can easily lead to addiction for life. A few whiffs of heroin may be the start of a deadly habit. To cope with the new problem, the Nanking Government passed a law in 1936 declaring that addicts must present themselves for a cure within a year or suffer the death penalty. Remedial work was accomplished during this period. But when the Japanese set up the Peace Preservation Council in Tientsin in 1937, the Nanking law, it was announced, would no longer apply to the district. The drug habit spread and the function of the anti-narcotic hospital, set up under the law, ground to a halt. Japanese drug-joints sprang up almost in the streets. The proprietors, Japanese and Koreans, were not allowed to sell to the Japanese, but open offers of drugs were made to foreigners and to the Chinese. Tientsin became a drug-ridden city. During the Japanese occupation, huge quantities of Iranian Opium were arriving at Shanghai for consignment to the Japanese army and to Japanese companies. This was in 1938. The explanation the Japanese gave for the importation was that the opium was being shipped into China for use by a large heroin factory at Shanghai. In Nanking four groups were chiefly responsible for opium circulation.
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 10 They were the Special Service Section of the Japanese army, the so-called Reform Government of Nanking, independent Japanese and Korean drug runners, and Japanese firms. In 1938, one eighth of the Chinese in Nanking were slowly being poisoned by drugs. Foreign observers, medical men, journalists, and missionaries had reported a year earlier that the drug situation there was steadily worsening, for the Chinese local officials and magistrates were unable to prevent its sale. The Japanese did much to insure the merchandising of drugs. Well-lighted and attractive clinics were opened. Some of them displayed a deceptive red cross. Illuminated street signs led victims from the highways, byways, and side streets to the opium stores and dens. Newspaper advertisements told of the various diseases the drug would allegedly cure. Patients entering a clinic were given a cursory examination by a quack doctor or drug dispenser and then they were listed as sufferers of some disease the cure for which was drugs. Thereafter, as often as they wanted it, heroin or morphine was sold to the patients and in amounts unlimited. THE TABLES TURN The Report was dated March 10, 1952; it was from the United States Representative to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs; it showed that the tables had turned. The title of that report was "The Source and Extent of Heroin Traffic in Japan." The Communists were smuggling opium and heroin from China into Japan, the United States, and other countries. Again, the policy of trying to weaken an enemy by subsidizing addiction was at work. This time the free people of the world, fighting against communism and its spread, was the objective, with an enemy who was spreading addiction to swell its coffers and finance a war. Studies clearly show that the major illicit sources of the world's narcotic supply today are Communist China, Burma, Malaya, India, Japan, Turkey, Thailand, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Italy, and Mexico.
MAN'S USE OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 11 Beginning in 1951 investigations conducted in Italy proved that Italian heroin has been smuggled into the United States and elsewhere since 1948. Five licensed factories there diverted one ton of heroin into illicit channels for smuggling. The Italian Government, recognizing this shocking situation, has undertaken certain remedial measures. In October 1951 the Italian Commission of Public Health passed a decree indefinitely suspending the further production of heroin. It is apparent that further production of heroin in Italy is unwarranted and unnecessary since possibly only 20 kilograms of heroin of the annual production of 200 kilograms were used or needed for Italian medicinal consumption. Twenty kilograms is about 44 pounds. The pattern of the criminal investigations conducted in Italy by agents of the United States Bureau of Narcotics with the cooperation of the Italian police has been consistent. Gangsters had a virtual monopoly over all of the diverted Italian heroin which they were supplying to the organized narcotic gangs of principal east-coast, midwest, and west-coast American cities. Internationally notorious deportee gangsters in Italy are in control of this traffic. The foregoing facts, brief and with little detail, supply but the background, since this book is not intended to be a history of the opium traffic. But that history does point up the fact that the present wave of drug addiction in the United States, Canada, Turkey, Egypt, England, Germany, Japan, and in fact, all countries is not something previously unknown to mankind. The misuse of opium has occurred since its discovery. If it weren't for the boon it has afforded in medical therapy, decent people everywhere would certainly never have tolerated its continued existence. For centuries the poppy has been the symbol of a dangerous instrumentality-of traffic fraught with evil, of unprincipled men who satisfied by it their lust for wealth and power, of amoral nations who compromise for economic reasons and of a potent weapon of aggression. And today it is the Communists of Red China who are exploiting the poppy, who are financing and fostering aggressive warfare through depravity and human misery.
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 12 Drug addiction is a cold, calculated, ruthless, systematic plan to undermine by creating new addicts while sustaining the old. It requires all-out action on all levels of government, local, state, and national, as well as by international cooperation. it will take that kind of concerted effort to stamp out drug addiction. CONTENTS
II THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS THE DESCRIPTION AND DISCUSSION THAT IS PRESENTED IN THIS CHAPTER will provide the reader with a survey of the narcotic drugs and, it is believed, with a better understanding of the problems to be discussed in later chapters. While not exhaustive in detail, sufficient information is given to establish clearly the various characteristics of the drugs that contribute to what is in this book called the traffic in narcotics. OPIUM AND ITS DERIVATIVES The use of opium in medicine and surgery is indispensable. The famous English physician of the seventeenth century, Sydenham, once wrote, "Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium." There can be no doubt that opium is a blessing when properly utilized; but, as has been indicated earlier, a vast illicit use for it has unfortunately been prevalent through the centuries and probably will always continue. The term opium is defined by the United States Pharmacopoeia as the "air-dried milky exudation obtained by incising the unripe capsules of Papaver somniferum Linné, or its variety album De Candolle (Fam. Papaveracea)." Opium is obtained from the Poppy plant, which is an annual herb, and in commerce must be cultivated. The plant is probably indigenous to Asia Minor; it is now most widely grown in China, India, Turkey, Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Iran. Page 13
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 14 By the middle of the sixteenth century, the use of opium was both accepted and fairly well understood by the physicians and pharmacists of Western Europe. Paracelsus first used the term laudanum in 1537, and in the eighteenth century Le Mort made the first preparation of paregoric. In 1805, a German pharmacist named Sertürner first isolated morphine from opium. This was the beginning of modem alkaloidal medicine. In 1832 Robiquet isolated codeine, and sixteen years later Merck discovered papaverine. The alkaloids, comprising about 25 percent by weight of opium, represent its pharmacologically active constituents, and the most important of these are morphine, codeine, and papaverine. Other natural alkaloids of lesser import are thebaine (1835), narcotine (1803), and narceine (1832). Additionally, there are many derivatives of morphine, among which are heroin, dionin, codeine, dilaudid, and dicodid. There are two preparations of opium which are therapeutically employed today, laudanum and paregoric. These compounds, however, have been used with decreasing frequency since the isolation of morphine, and today the customary use of paregoric is with children and in the treatment of diarrhea. There follows a brief description of the principal opium derivatives. MORPHINE The most commonly used and best known of the alkaloids is morphine, the principal medical function of which is the relief of pain. Its greatest drawback is the danger of addiction. It is usually prescribed in the form of its salts and the two most familiar of these are morphine sulfate and morphine hydrochloride. Morphine may be given orally or by subcutaneous injection, and under emergent conditions it is given intravenously. Dosage, of course, depends upon the patient, the nature of the illness, and varying other factors of diagnosis. The therapeutic uses of morphine may be summarized as follows: * *Pharmacologic Principles of Medical Practice, by John C. Krantz, Jr. and C. Jelleff Carr.
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 15 1. The principal use is to relieve pain. Its use here is indicated only when those analgesics which do not produce addiction have failed. 2. It is useful in checking diarrhea. 3. It is valuable in the treatment of dry non-productive coughs which have failed to yield to codeine. 4. It is excellent for pre-operative medication. 5. It is indicated in surgical hemorrhage, whereby the blood pressure is reduced and bleeding diminishes. 6. It is useful as a hypnotic when pain interferes with the ability to sleep and when potentially less harmful narcotics have failed to induce sleep. HEROIN Heroin (diacetylmorphine), which is about five times as potent as morphine, can produce a most vicious addiction. Because of this potency, together with the concomitant strong euphoric effects, this drug is always in great demand by addicts, and, accordingly, it has become the foundation of the illicit traffic. In view of the fact that its value from a therapeutic standpoint is no greater than that of morphine and since its toxicity is higher and objections to its use greatly outweigh its advantages, the United States prohibits the importation, manufacture, or sale of heroin. Some fifty nations now prohibit the manufacture of heroin. DILAUDID Dilaudid (dihydromorphinone hydrochloride), used mainly as a substitute for morphine, is also more potent than morphine. It has a much greater analgesic effect, but of shorter duration, than morphine. Both tolerance and addiction to dilaudid occur. DIONIN Dionin (ethylmorphine hydrochloride) generally has the same pharmacological qualities as codeine. Formerly used as a cough remedy, its use is presently mainly employed in treatment involving the eyes.
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 16 CODEINE Codeine, widely used and frequently prescribed in the phosphate or the sulphate form, is a derivative of morphine, and tolerance and addiction to it can occur as well. While it is employed in several ways, its primary use is in the treatment of cough. it is much less potent than morphine and, for that reason together with the fact that it generally fails to produce euphoria, is rarely used by drug addicts. PAPAVERINE Papaverine hydrochloride is the salt of an alkaloid contained in opium and as such is embraced within the scope of the Federal narcotic laws and regulations. It is unlike morphine both pharmacologically and chemically, and has only a mild analgesic effect. COCAINE Cocaine is obtained from the leaves of the Erythroxylon coca Lamarck, and also from other species of Erythroxylon, a shrub indigenous to Peru and Bolivia. Peru provides the bulk of coca leaves for the commercial trade. But the, species are grown successfully elsewhere in tropical regions. Their leaves can be harvested from two to four times annually depending on climatic and other growing conditions. There are four principal uses of coca leaves: (1) in medicine; (2) for the manufacture of cocaine; (3) for the manufacture of non-narcotic flavoring extracts; (4) for chewing. The Incas of ancient Peru believed that coca-leaf chewing both. diminished hunger and lessened fatigue, and thereby enhanced their endurance and they considered it of paramount importance in connection with high-altitude labor, particularly in the Andes mountain regions. Coca-leaf chewing, or coqueo as it is called, is habitual in several South American countries, notably in Peru and Bolivia, but it is also prevalent in Colombia, northern Argentina, and Brazil. While many local factors probably are involved, coca-leaf chewing
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 17 has been considered in some areas a practical necessity in overcoming the effects of climate, altitude, and nutrition. Recent studies, however, indicate that neither climate nor altitude has been a determining factor since the practice occurs in varying climates and in widely differing altitudes. Coca-leaf chewing, by inhibiting the sensation of hunger, maintains a constant state of malnutrition, ultimately undermining the health and stamina of the user. The conclusion, therefore, is clear that in its effects it is injurious and not beneficient. The discovery of cocaine is usually credited to Nieman, who reported it in 1859. It has been claimed, however, that the real credit belongs to Gardeke, who produced it under the name of erythroxyline in 1855. Subsequent to its introduction, toward the close of the nineteenth century its growth as a local anesthesia drug in medical practice increased tremendously. However, as its use spread, it became evident that it was not only very toxic but also habit-forming. Cocaine may be classed in the stimulant or excitant group of drugs as far as its effects on the nervous system are concerned. It is patent therefore, that its very nature makes it a most dangerous drug, particularly so when the user has a maladjusted personality. The drug causes mental deterioration; and, physically, nausea, digestive disorders, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, emaciation, and tremors result from its continued use. In medicine, cocaine is used principally as a local anesthetic. It produces desensitization of the sensory nerve endings and because of this is often employed as a nasal, oral, or ocular anesthetic before treatment or surgery. Due to its dangerous characteristics, however, it has been replaced in medicine by preparations, such as procaine and Novocaine. Because of its toxicity, it is rarely used hypodermically, inasmuch as less toxic compounds are readily available for the purpose of injection. Addicts prefer to sniff the drug, absorbing it through the mucous membranes of the nose. The cocaine powder used in this way is commonly known as snow, and its continued sniffing can cause the nasal septum to become perforated. Cocaine is very scarce on the illicit market because the international
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 18 movement of coca leaves is strictly controlled. Peru, it might be mentioned, has closed all cocaine factories. MARIHUANA Delving back through the centuries, we find references to the hemp plant as early as three thousand years ago in China-about 1200 B.C.--- hence its description as a drug of the New and Old World is apt. It is probable that central or southern Asia was its original habitat. Today it is found growing either wild or under cultivation in wide areas of India, the Shan States of Burma, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and in Africa. In Western European countries only small quantities are grown. Because of its wide-spread distribution, it might be helpful to identify some of the names by which it is known throughout the world. The name marihuana, of Mexican-Indian origin, has become the general term in North and South America. In the United States the word reefer has through popular usage come to mean a marihuana cigarette. In England, which is experiencing an increase in its illegal use, it is popularly known as Indian hemp. Then there is the hashish of the Middle East, which is sometimes used in the United States. In Morocco and Algeria it is called kif; in Tunisia, takrouri; in South Africa, dagga; in India, bhang, charas, and manzoul. It is the maconha and djamba of Brazil, and the esrar and manzoul of Turkey. What is this substance and whence does it come? Marihuana, to use its popular name, belongs to the genus Cannabis, of which there is only a single species, Cannabis sativa L. Varieties, grown in different sections are botanically described as Cannabis indica (Indian hemp), Cannabis mexicana, and so forth. Since the bulk of the resin is contained in the flowering tops, the term marihuana has been relatively limited to those portions of the plant, while hashish refers to a special form of recovered resin of the plant. Commercially the plant, aside from its drug-producing properties, is used in the production of textiles, cord, and twine; depending on climate and soil, plants in
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 19 different areas will have a greater or lesser commercial value due to the relative softness or hardness of the fibers. Numerous products are made from the hemp plant that are used by drug addicts. Bhang is obtained from the leaves, the whole substance of which is reduced to a powder. The powdered leaves are frequently mixed with spices, honey, or water. It is eaten or drunk as well as smoked. Ganja consists of the flowering tops of the plant and is prepared by crushing it into a sticky mass. it is for the most part smoked in pipes or as cigarettes, but on occasion is eaten. From the resin extracted from the tops is secured the charas of India and central Asia; the chira, chiras of Egypt, Syria, and Greece; the hashish of Egypt, India, and Syria. The raw resin extracted from the tops is either kneaded into sticks or reduced to powder. In discussing its use, one fact should be emphasized at once. Whereas the opiates can be a blessing when properly used, marihuana has no therapeutic value, and its use is therefore always an abuse and a vice. This important fact should never be forgotten, and pharmacopoeias throughout the world have generally expunged it. At present the consumption of hemp is allowed by law in only three countries, namely, India, Tunisia, and Morocco. The oral consumption of bhang has always been permitted in India and the smoking of ganja is still permitted in many Indian states, but all states have now decided to restrict progressively the consumption of Indian hemp. Only Indian hemp mixed with tobacco is permitted to be used in Morocco. Hemp in the form of takrouri is legally consumed in Tunisia. Hemp is either smoked or taken orally depending upon the individual, the place, or local customs. By absorbing it through the digestive tract, some experts feel that the effect is stronger. However, smoking is undoubtedly the most prevalent method of use in the Americas and in England. Cigarettes are prepared from the tops and leaves of the plant, and they are typically about the size of an American king-size cigarette, but somewhat thinner and more loosely packed. A cheaper grade is also prepared from the leaves and other parts of the hemp plant which, since the
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 20 resin content is less, results in a product less effective for the smoker. Marihuana is grown illegally in some States of the United States. While the Mexican variety, some of which is smuggled over the Texas border, is preferred by some smokers, there is always a ready market for all types. It is cheap compared to the price of heroin and cocaine since the price of a cigarette on the illicit market averages from fifty cents to one dollar. The user of marihuana, unlike the heroin addict, seems to prefer to pursue his vice in groups or, in the vernacular, at tea parties. He (and here it might be interjected that men far outnumber women in this vice) has been well termed by one authority as a "gregarious addict." Like all narcotic addicts, any reasonable conception of hygiene on the part of the smoker is sorely lacking. At gatherings a cigarette is passed from lip to lip. Cupping the hands to prevent the loss of the fumes, the greatest amount of smoke possible is deeply inhaled and retained for a maximum length of time. At times several consecutive short puffs are taken, and on occasion the smoke is swallowed. And so it goes until eventually the cigarette is entirely consumed. As a result of this habit, the inveterate smoker will have the same tell-tale stains of any heavy smoker of ordinary cigarettesthe yellow or dark brown stains accompanied by a hardening of the skin of those portions of the fingers which have held the cigarette. EFFECT ON THE INDIVIDUAL What are the physiological and psychological effects of the use of marihuana? What does it do to the individual? First of all, marihuana does not create physical dependence as do the opiates. Habituation occurs in the average case, but experts have observed the development of a special tolerance in instances of prolonged and excessive use. Collaterally, the danger of progression to the use of and addiction to the opiates always lurks in the background for the user of marihuana. A further distinction between the opiates and marihuana has been touched on before but bears repeating. While opium can be a blessing or a curse, depending on its use, marihuana is only and always a scourge
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 21 which undermines its victims and degrades them mentally, morally, and physically. Medical experts agree on the complete unpredictability of the effect of marihuana on different individuals. A small dose taken by one subject may bring about intense intoxication, raving fits, criminal assaults. Another subject can consume large amounts without experiencing any reaction except stupefaction. It is this unpredictable effect which makes of marihuana one of the most dangerous drugs known. Moreover, every individual will react in a different degree to the same dosage of this narcotic, depending on his physiological and emotional constitution. Certain physical effects appear to be present in the majority of cases of marihuana intoxication. The first reactions appear, an hour or so after consumption, in the form of muscular trembling, increased heartbeat, acceleration of pulse. This is accompanied by a ringing in the ears, an intense feeling of heat in the head, dizziness, and sensations of cold in the hands and feet. Constrictions in the chest, dilation of the pupil of the eye, and muscular contraction follow. The physical reactions increase in intensity until either vomiting or complete stupefaction occurs. Initially the individual is excited, restless, and boisterous, over-garrulous and uninhibited. Next comes a period of dissociation of ideas and exaggeration of emotions. judgment and concentration are impaired; the subject shows a marked inability to judge both time and space; perceptions are distorted; in short, mental confusion occurs, accompanied by hallucinations. Marihuana sharpens the sensibilities, and in this stage the addict is prone to suggestion, violent or otherwise. The intense overexcitement of the nerves and emotions leads to uncontrollable irritability and violent and irresponsible acts due to irresistible impulses of suggestive origin. The last stage might include hallucinations, varied and often terrifying. Restless sleep, accompanied by bizarre phantasmagoria, then overcomes the victim. In the earliest stages of intoxication the will power is destroyed and inhibitions and restraints are released; the moral barricades are broken down and often debauchery and sexuality results. Where mental instability is inherent, the behavior is generally violent. An egotist will enjoy delusions of grandeur, the timid
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 22 individual will suffer anxiety, and the aggressive one often will resort to acts of violence and crime. Dormant tendencies are released and while the subject may know what is happening, he has become powerless to prevent it. Constant use produces incapacity for work and a disorientation of purpose. The drug has a corroding effect on the body and on the mind, weakening the entire physical system and often leading to insanity after prolonged use. BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION The following are summaries of a few of the many cases recorded in the files of the U. S. Bureau of Narcotics which illustrate the homicidal tendencies and the generally debasing effects arising from the use of marihuana:
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 23 The effects he experienced are characteristic, particularly with regard to the distortion of space and lack of restraint or memory by individuals of their own actions while under the influence of marihuana.
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 24
The following cases were taken from police records of several cities:
On a Saturday evening in November, 1945, a pretty seventeenmonth-old baby girl was left in the family car while her parents went in search of a relative. When they returned to the car less than ten minutes later, the baby had disappeared. The next afternoon, scarcely 200 yards away, the body was found in the furrow of a cotton field. The baby was naked except for one small white shoe and a red-knitted bonnet. She had been violated. Teeth marks covered her body. Her tiny contorted face had been shoved into the mud and particles of dirt in her lungs showed that she had been alive at the time and suffocated later.
For what the district attorney described as "the most horrible, the most brutal crime in the history of the area," Paul G. was sentenced
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 25 to death. The final words of his counsel are well worth remembering: "The real criminal in this case is marihuana!"
THE SOCIAL ASPECTS In addition to showing a link between the use of marihuana and crime, these cases emphasize the serious social menace to the community which results when an individual with criminal tendencies uses this narcotic. Many times the false courage to commit overt crime has been supplied by marihuana, and often violence is perpetrated without the culprit being able to recall anything about it. Pathetic cases have been reported wherein the offender fancied an approaching member of his family as an enemy and killed him. Because the narcotic affects the judgment of speed and distances, a man under its influence at the wheel of an automobile is capable of leaving a trail of fatal accidents in his wake. One can readily see the menace a marihuana-user
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 26 would present wherever the safety of others depends upon the proper discharge of his duties. It takes but little imagination to picture the chaos and injury which might occur if the user were a locomotive engineer, for example, or the operator of steam or electrical equipment. Since the enactment in 1937 of Federal control legislation, considerable progress has been made towards a solution of the nation-wide marihuana problem. In the first five-year period, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, cooperating with State and municipal enforcement agencies throughout the country, conducted a program of eradication in which approximately 60,000 tons of marihuana were destroyed. In addition, the Bureau has seized large amounts of marihuana, both bulk and as cigarettes, in the illicit traffic, and has arrested. about 1,000 persons annually for violations of the Federal marihuana law. Due to the ease with which it grows, marihuana presents a continuing problem. Numerous police departments have educated their personnel to recognize the plant and have initiated local campaigns to eradicate it from vacant lots and roadsides in localities where it has been found growing. Many State and city officers throughout the country have been quick to realize the dangers of the drug and to assist in its suppression. The fact that the price of marihuana cigarettes is not prohibitive like that of other drugs makes it a definite menace to the youth, who seem to be its chief victims. SYNTHETIC NARCOTIC DRUGS Demerol was the first drug produced synthetically and designed for analgesic use as a substitute for the pain-relieving opium derivatives. The new drug bore no chemical relationship to morphine. When the result of official tests indicated that the new drug possessed addiction-liability similar to morphine, the Bureau of Narcotics proposed and obtained enactment of a special statute, approved July 1, 1944, making the Federal narcotic laws applicable to the new drug under the statutory designation isonipecaine. However, it was known that other new synthetic drugs being
THE ANATOMY OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Page 27 developed had comparable analgesic properties and might be found to possess addiction-liability. The Bureau of Narcotics recommended successfully the enactment of a statute, effective March 8, 1946, which established a general procedure for the expeditious application of control measures to any drug found to be dangerous from the addiction-liability standpoint. Under this statute, the Federal narcotic laws are made applicable to any drug found by the Secretary of the Treasury (after due notice and opportunity for public hearing) to have addiction-liability similar to morphine and cocaine, and proclaimed by the President to have been so found by the Secretary. The Secretary, in making such findings, and the Bureau of Narcotics, in determining general questions of policy where chemistry and pharmacology of narcotics or marihuana are involved, receive invaluable cooperation by way of scientific research, and advice, and technical service, from the United States Public Health Service and the Committee on Drug Addiction and Narcotics of the National Research Council. Eleven of the new synthetic analgesic drugs have been made subject to narcotic control by this procedure, but only a few of these drugs have been made available for general medical use, examples being Methadon (Dolophine or Adanon), Nisentil and Dromoran. THE PROTOCOL OF 1948 The U. S. Representative on the United Nations Narcotic Commission proposed an international agreement in the nature of an addition to the 1931 Convention, which was adopted and became effective as the Protocol of 1948. This Protocol establishes international procedure, analogous in principle to that established in the United States by the Act of March 8, 1946, whereby new drugs found to have dangerous addiction-liability are promptly brought under control imposed by the 1931 Convention, the definite finding in this case being made by the World Health Organization. Up to the present time, the findings of the Secretary of the Treasury under the national law and the findings of
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 28 the World Health Organization under the 1948 Protocol, with respect to addiction-liability of the same new drugs, have been in accord. By August 1952, thirty-nine nations had signed the Protocol of 1948. CONTENTS
III PROGRESS IN INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION---PART ONE
THERE HAVE BEEN FEW MORE DRAMATIC OR MORE SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS at international collaboration than those in the field of the control of narcotic drugs. The results obtained are outstanding. The present study surveys not only the historical development of the international control of narcotic drugs under the various treaties, but also explains in detail the somewhat complex administrative, advisory, and policy-making machinery. It reviews the new problems which have arisen and the new solutions which have been sought. The study also deals with such questions as the development of synthetic drugs, the efforts to control opium production and the progress toward streamlining the international control machinery. THE SHANGHAI CONFERENCE-1909 The first step in the international campaign against narcotic drugs took place in 1909 when an International Opium Commission met in Shanghai on the initiative of the United States Government which had become seriously concerned over the problem of addiction in the Philippines. Representatives of thirteen governments--- Austria-Hungary, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Siam, and the United States--- participated in the conference.
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THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 30 RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED The United States Delegation proposed the immediate prohibition of opium smoking, but the conference was not prepared to go further than the following resolution: Be it resolved: That in view of the action taken by the Government of China in suppressing the practice of opium smoking, and by other Governments to the same end, the International Opium Commission recommends that each delegation concerned move its own Government to take measures for the gradual suppression of the practice of opium smoking in its own territories and possessions, with due regard to the varying circumstances of each country concerned. Nine resolutions were adopted unanimously. The representatives recognized that "the use of opium in any form otherwise than for medical purposes is held by almost every participating country to be a matter of prohibition or for careful regulation;" that "the unrestricted manufacture, sale, and distribution of morphine already constitute a grave danger, and that the morphine habit shows signs of spreading; the International Opium Commission therefore desires to urge strongly on all governments that it is highly important that drastic measures should be taken by each government in its own territories and possessions to control the manufacture, sale, and distribution of this drug, and also of such other derivatives of opium as may appear on scientific inquiry to be liable to similar abuse and productive of like ill effects;" . . . that "it is also the duty of all countries to adopt reasonable measures to prevent at ports of departure the shipment of opium, its alkaloids, derivatives, and preparations, to any country which prohibits the entry of any opium, its alkaloids, derivatives, and preparations;" that "all governments possessing concessions or settlements in China, which have not yet taken effective action toward the closing of opium divans in the said concessions and settlements, to take steps to that end as soon as they may deem it possible;" . . . and that "each delegation move its government to apply its pharmacy laws to its subjects in the consular districts, concessions, and settlements in China."
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION--- PART ONE Page 31 THE HAGUE CONVENTION OF 1912 The United States considered it important that international effect and sanction should be given to the resolutions of the International Opium Commission which had met In Shanghai in 1909, and to this end its Government proposed that an international conference be held at a convenient date, at The Hague or elsewhere, composed of one or more delegates of each of the powers, and that the delegates should have full powers to conventionalize the resolutions adopted at Shanghai. The date of the assembling of the conference was finally fixed by The Netherlands for December 1, 1911. The Hague Convention as finally agreed upon contains a number of general principles which remain as the foundation and mainspring of all drug control. Even the rules for domestic control--vague as they were in some instances--- have stood the test of time and are still the basis of domestic control, although amplified by later conventions. The Convention incorporated the principles adopted at the Shanghai Conference and imposed an obligation on the parties "to use their best endeavours" to put these principles into practice. Its main defect was that it created no administrative machinery for the implementation of the agreed principles. While the production and distribution of raw opium was to be subjected to control, no limitation was placed on the quantity to be produced or distributed except indirectly as to how control over production and distribution was to be effected. The Hague Convention bound the contracting parties to adopt provisions of control and regulation for raw opium, prepared opium, and the manufactured substances--- medicinal opium, morphine, diacetylmorphine (heroin), and cocaine. The production of raw opium was to be controlled and its distribution regulated. Import or export should be made only by duly authorized persons, and each contracting party was required to limit the number of towns, ports, or other places through which export or import was to be permitted. Export to countries prohibiting the
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 32 import of raw opium was to be prevented, and controlled to countries which restricted its import. The manufacture, internal traffic in, and use of prepared opium were to be gradually suppressed, while imports and exports were to be immediately prohibited. In countries where prohibition of exports was not immediately practicable, however, prohibition should take place as soon as possible. In these countries exports were to be restricted in the ways provided for raw opium; the exporting country was required to adopt the measures necessary for complying with the regulations in force in the country of import. The manufacture, sale, and use of morphine, cocaine and their respective salts was to be limited to medical and legitimate uses only. The parties "shall use their best efforts to control all those who manufacture, import, sell, distribute and export morphine, cocaine and their respective salts, as well as the buildings where such persons exercise that commerce." The parties were to examine into the possibility of enacting laws making the illegal possession of raw opium, prepared opium, morphine, cocaine and their respective salts liable to penalties. The Hague Convention did not come into general application until after the end of World War I. On February 11, 1915, the convention came into force for the United States of America, China, and The Netherlands, which were the first three countries to agree to apply its provisions. The original ratification article required that all states which had participated in the conference of 1912 should have ratified the convention before it could come into force. There was considerable delay and for this reason a subsequent special protocol was needed. Many countries became parties to the convention through the Peace Treaties signed at the end of World War I, and all of which contained an article under which ratification of the peace treaty should "be deemed in all respects equivalent to the ratification of that Convention [Hague Convention] and to the signature of the Special Protocol ... for bringing the said Convention into force." By August, 1952, seventy countries had become parties to the Convention.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION--- PART ONE Page 33 THE GENEVA CONVENTION OF 1925 The International Opium Conference which sat at Geneva from November, 1924, to February, 1925, and was attended by delegates from thirty-six countries, adopted a new Convention. The aims of the convention are stated in the preamble, which notes that the Hague Convention produced results of great value, but that illicit traffic in and abuse of narcotic substances still continued on a large scale, and that it was necessary to examine "with a view to the conclusion of an agreement, the question of the limitation of the amounts of morphine, heroin, or cocaine and their respective salts to be manufactured; of the limitation of the amounts of raw opium and coca leaf to be imported for that purpose and for other medicinal and scientific purposes; and of the limitation of the production of raw opium and the coca leaf for export to the amount required for such medicinal and scientific purposes ..." The joint resolution, adopted by the Congress of the United States on May 15, 1924, authorizing participation in the Conference, quoted these principles and stipulated "that the representatives of the United States shall sign no agreement which does not fulfil the conditions necessary for the suppression of the narcotic drug traffic as set forth in the preamble." After prolonged sessions, neither the plans for the direct limitation of quantities of drugs on the basis of estimated requirements as proposed by the United States Delegation, nor for the limitation of the production of raw opium and coca leaves to amounts required for medical and scientific needs were accepted, and under these circumstances the Delegation of the United States had no alternative other than to withdraw from the Conference. The Chinese Delegation also withdrew because of the refusal. of the governments in whose territories the use of prepared opium was still legal to agree to its suppression. Abandoning attempts directly to limit the production of raw materials and the manufacture of narcotic drugs, the Conference concentrated on the control of trade and commerce. By the terms of the Convention, the contracting parties agreed to establish control of the manufacture, sale, and movement of dangerous
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 34 drugs, and to report annually the quantities manufactured, consumed, stocks on hand, etc., and every three months the quantities exported and imported. Thus governments are made responsible for the legitimacy of exports and imports, and any attempt to divert drugs in transit can be detected. The most important advance was the establishment of the system of compulsory import certificates and export authorizations. Under this system the exporter must obtain from his government an export authorization which. will only be issued on production of the copy of an import certificate issued by the government of the importing country, stating that the drug in question is needed for medical purposes. The creation of the Permanent Central Board to supervise the statistical system initiated by the Convention represented another important step in international narcotic control. Under the Convention the parties undertook to furnish to the Permanent Central Board estimates of the quantities of each of the substances covered by the Convention to be imported into their territory for internal consumption during the following year, but one of the chief shortcomings of the Convention was its failure to provide a method of determining each country's and the world's total legitimate need of narcotic drugs, as well as binding obligations to keep within those limits. The Geneva Convention of 1925 came into force on September 28, 1928. By August, 1952, sixty-two countries had ratified the Convention. THE 1931 CONVENTION FOR LIMITING THE MANUFACTURE AND REGULATING THE DISTRIBUTION OF NARCOTIC DRUGS Reference has been made to the fact that the Geneva Opium Conference which concluded the 1925 Convention did not accept proposals for the effective limitation of the manufacture of dangerous drugs. In a document published by the Secretariat of the League of Nations, it was revealed that between 1925-29 approximately 100 tons of morphine passed into the illicit traffic. Six tons of cocaine escaped into the illicit traffic in the same period.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION-PART ONE Page 35 The total annual requirements of these drugs were estimated at 39 tons. As knowledge of this situation spread, public opinion in certain countries demanded limitation of manufacture, and in 1931 an International Conference was convened at Geneva to conclude a convention for this purpose. The system of limitation embodied in the Limitation Convention of 1931 is based upon estimates which each contracting party undertakes to provide, with non-contracting parties also asked to furnish estimates, of the quantities of drugs required during the ensuing year. Each estimate is based solely on medical and scientific requirements, and must be submitted by August 1st of the year preceding that for which the estimate is made. These estimates are examined by an international body of experts--- the Supervisory Body--- which was set up by the Convention. If a contracting or non-contracting country fails to return an estimate, the Supervisory Body is entrusted with the duty of drawing up an estimate for it. This far-reaching provision is absolute in respect of contracting parties. The estimates for each country, which may be followed by supplementary estimates accompanied by an explanation for their necessity, are required to show for each of the drugs covered by the Convention, whether in the form of alkaloids or of salts or of preparations of the alkaloids or salts: 1. The quantity necessary for medical and scientific needs (this includes the quantities required for the manufacture of preparations for which export authorizations are not required, whether .intended for domestic consumption or not); 2. The quantity necessary for conversion whether for domestic >consumption or export; 3. The amount of the reserve stocks which it is desired to maintain; 4. The quantity necessary for the establishment and maintenance of any governmental stocks. The Supervisory Body forwards to every government of the world an annual statement containing the estimates for each country. The estimates system introduced by the Limitation Convention of 1931 differs from that contained in the Geneva Convention
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 36 of 1925 in that the estimates under the Convention of 1931 are required for the total quantities necessary for consumption within the country, and are binding, Whereas those which the parties agreed to submit under the Convention of 1925 relate only to imports for medical, scientific, and other purposes, and are not binding. Under the Limitation Convention of 1931 controls are applied to all stages between manufacture and ultimate consumption of manufactured drugs. This Convention marked a great advance in international supervision of the drug traffic and also of international law. World manufacture was effectively limited, as were also the supplies available for each country. The Convention achieved its purposes, and it is generally recognized that it has been completely successful in its application. The following opinion on the 1931 Convention was expressed by the Assembly of the League of Nations:
Noteworthy from the point of view of international law is the fact that a government not a party to the Convention and which has not furnished its estimates, may be prevented from importing drugs from a country which is a party, due to an embargo issued, by the Central Board under Article 14, paragraph 2, of the Limitation Convention on account of excess over the estimates for the non-party state furnished by the Supervisory Body. The 1931 Convention came into application in its entirety as from. January 1, 1934. By August, 1952, seventy-three countries: had ratified the Convention.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION--- PART ONE Page 37 THE CONVENTION OF 1936 FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE ILLICIT TRAFFIC IN DANGEROUS DRUGS The object of the 1936 Convention is stated in the Preamble to be: "to strengthen the measures intended to penalize offenses" contained in the previous international conventions and "to combat by the methods most effective in the present circumstances the illicit traffic in the drugs and substances covered by the Conventions." The experience gained since 1912 had shown that the illicit traffic could not be effectively suppressed unless there were equally severe penalties in all countries, and also effective measures to make it possible to bring to justice traffickers who escaped from the country where they had violated the drug laws, or who directed illicit traffic in one country through another country. The 1936 Convention stipulated that offenses defined therein should be included as extradition crimes in any extradition treaty to be negotiated between the contracting parties. In countries where the extradition of nationals is not recognized, the parties undertook to prosecute a national who had returned to his country after committing an offense abroad which came within the terms of the Convention. These provisions were designed to prevent narcotic traffickers from escaping prosecution because the laws of the country in which they resided did not cover smuggling offenses committed abroad. The Convention also provided that the contracting parties should set up a central office to supervise and coordinate all operations necessary to prevent the illicit traffic. The United States refused to sign the 1936 Convention on the ground that it covered trade in and distribution of manufactured drugs only and did not include raw materials or smoking opium; it would afford no constitutional basis for Federal control of the production of cannabis, opium, and the opium poppy; and furthermore, while in some countries its enforcement might result in improvement in efforts to prevent the abuse of narcotic drugs, the provisions of the Convention would weaken rather than strengthen the effectiveness of the efforts of the American Government
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 38 to prevent and punish narcotics offenses and to obtain extradition therefor. The 1936 Convention came into force in October 1939, one month after outbreak of World War II. By August, 1952, nineteen countries had ratified the Convention. THE PROTOCOL OF 1946 The supervision of operation of the several narcotic Conventions had been performed by the Opium Advisory Committee of the Council of the League of Nations, which went out of existence upon the organization of the United Nations. In February) 1946, the Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and the U. S. Commissioner of Narcotics was appointed the United States Representative on this Commission. He proposed an agreement which was adopted as the Protocol of 1946, whereby all functions assigned under the several conventions to organs of the defunct League of Nations were transferred to corresponding organs of the United Nations. Thus the new Commission on Narcotic Drugs assumed the functions of the old Opium Advisory Committee. SINGLE CONVENTION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS The Commission on Narcotic Drugs has devoted considerable time to discussion and modification of a draft prepared by the UN Secretariat, of a so-called Unified Convention, that is, a convention designed to include all of the operative provisions of the existing international conventions and protocols controlling the traffic in narcotic drugs including marihuana. In addition, to the usual divergence of views as to the necessity of a given provision, or the appropriateness of a proposed method of reaching a desired aim, there was the difficulty that one or more of the existing international agreements, considered essential for incorporation into the single convention, had not been adopted by, some of the high contracting parties to other conventions. The object of the proposed unification is not only to combine the eight international agreements on the subject but also to
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION--- PART ONE Page 39 revise and strengthen these agreements, closing loopholes, and rejecting obsolete provisions. It is obviously most desirable to revise these international agreements, one of which dates back to 1912, and to incorporate them if possible into a single agreement which will provide reasonably effective control over the production of opium, coca leaves, and cannabis, over the manufacture of the dangerous or potentially dangerous products of these substances as well as of synthetic substitutes for them, and over the distribution of such raw material and of the manufactured products or synthetic substitutes. THE PERMANENT CENTRAL BOARD The Permanent Central Board,* a semi-autonomous organ, was created by the Geneva Convention of 1925, and its main function was defined as continuously to "watch over the course of the international trade in narcotic drugs." Its duties have been discharged without interruption since 1928. The Permanent Central Board consists of eight persons who, by their technical competence, impartiality, and disinterestedness, command general confidence. Originally the members of the Board were appointed by the Council of the League of Nations. Since the amendments to the 1925 Convention contained in the Protocol of December 11, 1946, came into force, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations is the appointing authority. The 1925 Convention laid down certain conditions for the appointing authority. The membership of the Board must include in equitable proportion persons possessing a knowledge of the drug situation both in the producing and manufacturing countries and in the consuming countries. It was also stated in the Convention that the members of the Central Board, who are appointed for five years, should not hold any office which put them in a position of direct dependence on their governments. This provision, which was inserted in order to make it possible for the Board to carry out certain semijudicial ____________________ *Generally referred to as the Permanent Central Opium Board. ____________________
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 40 functions under the Convention, has created problems in the selection of its personnel. It was pointed out at the first session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs that changing social systems in various countries might make it difficult for these governments to propose candidates who fulfilled these conditions. At the second session the Commission adopted a resolution concerning the meaning of this provision which was approved by the Economic and Social Council at its sixth session. According to this resolution, it is possible for the Council to elect members who, although they might originally have been in a position of direct dependence on their government, undertook to relinquish their government office during their term of duty with the Permanent Central Board, provided that they also agreed not to act under the instructions of their governments while exercising their functions as members of the Board. It was also agreed that it was possible for the Council to elect professional men and women in academic positions, from universities or other institutions supported by the state. In 1925 it was decided that the Hague Convention of 1912 should be reinforced, because its provisions and the national laws governing the movement of drugs did not prevent illicit traffic, in large part because of the lack of an administration or the machinery to supervise the traffic. The Permanent Central Board fills this need. The High Contracting Parties were convinced, says the 1925 Convention, that contraband trade and abuse of narcotic drugs could not be suppressed without more effective control of production or manufacture and closer supervision of the international trade. Accordingly, the parties undertook to institute certain measures for the internal control of narcotic drugs and the raw materials from which they are made, pledging themselves to institute legislation to limit exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the manufacture and distribution of narcotic drugs. Precise and definite obligations were imposed by the 1925 Convention. The participating countries agreed to set up a system of issuing import certificates and export- authorizations. They were also to submit annual estimates of the quantities of narcotic drugs which they needed to import each year for medicinal and
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION--- PART ONE Page 41 scientific purposes. Further, they undertook to furnish statistics of the production of raw materials, of the manufacture, consumption, export, import, and stocks of narcotic drugs, and the amount seized on account of illicit import. The international body which was created to receive these statistics was the Permanent Central Board. In order that it should be able to carry out its duties in a truly impartial manner, careful provision was made in the Convention that it should be constituted in such a way as to be completely independent of governments. In addition to the functions mentioned, the Board was vested with the power of recommending sanctions against a country importing or manufacturing narcotic drugs in excess of its legitimate needs. Several sanctions have been enforced. Each year the Board publishes a report showing the statistics it has received under various headings and stating whether any countries have exceeded their estimates. In this way, the parties to the Convention are kept informed of any undue accumulation of drugs in any particular country and can act on this information for their own protection. An instance of the effectiveness of the work of the Board was exemplified when it reported, prior to the 1931 Convention, that a Central American country had imported one hundred times its medical needs, or a supply of narcotic drugs sufficient for one hundred years. American authorities immediately began investigating, and found that narcotics were leaving that country and were being smuggled into the United States in exchange for arms and ammunition which were being sent for use in a revolution. When the Director of Health of the country then refused to issue licenses for the release of narcotics, he was assassinated. After a civil investigation, the entire gang of smugglers was rounded up and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The 1925 Convention worked satisfactorily in regard to trade, but it was found that the provisions relating to the manufacture of narcotic drugs had to be strengthened. It was to achieve this that a new Convention, a Convention to supplement the provisions of those of 1912 and 1925, was negotiated in 1931.
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 42 DRUG LIMITATION CONVENTION Under the 1931 Convention, a more rigorous system of submitting estimates was instituted to bring about a strict limitation of the amounts of narcotic drugs to be manufactured in each country. It had been found that knowledge of the movements and quantities of narcotics was not sufficient to control the illicit traffic. The new estimates submitted to the Permanent Central Board were to be examined by a Supervisory Body especially created for the purpose, and, once approved, were to be binding. It was, however, given to the Permanent Central Board to supervise the extent to which the parties to the Conventions carried out their obligations in respect of their estimates. Under Article 14 of this Convention, if the import and export returns show that the estimates of an importing country are or will be exceeded, the Board is under an obligation to inform all the High Contracting Parties "who will not during the currency of the year in question authorize any new exports to the country except in the special circumstances set forth in the Convention." At the entry into operation of the 1931 Convention, information at the disposal of the Permanent Central Board under the 1925 Convention could be used more effectively. The Board now not only published statistics and recommended sanctions, but by comparing its statistics with the estimates approved by the Supervisory Body, it could ascertain if any country was violating its obligations under the 1931 Convention by exceeding its estimates. The Board admitted that the degree of the success of international control varied from one narcotic drug to another. In the case of raw materials falling under the Convention of 1925, the control was vitiated by the inability of some of the most important producing countries to report their production accurately. In the findings of the annual report of the Permanent Central Board summarizing the work of the Board in 1951, it was noted that the Iranian Government had, for the first time in seventeen years, sent statistics for raw opium, so that it was possible to strike a balance, for the year 1950, of the quantities disposed of and available. According to this balance, 333 tons of raw opium
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION--- PART ONE Page 43 disappeared in Iran in 1950. (This is an example of the searching scrutiny of the Permanent Central Board.) The Board then asked the Iranian Government for an explanation. It was pointed out by the Board that so long as such incidents occur and remain unexplained, the situation must continue to be most disquieting. In the case of manufactured drugs, the chief aims of the 1925 Convention (a complete account of the supplies available) and of the 1931 Convention (the limitation of the manufacture to medical and scientific requirements) had, the Board felt, to a large extent been achieved. Broadly speaking, the Board described the satisfactory elements in the situation as being the wide extent of the control, which demanded a high degree of cooperation between governments, and the general reduction in drug addiction, of which there is considerable evidence. The Board, however, did not hesitate to criticize certain technical aspects of the submission of estimates and statistics. One of the chief advantages derived from this method of control seems to be that governments do not resent the fact that a board is continuously checking them. During World War II, the offices of the Permanent Central Board were moved to Washington, and Germany and her satellites continued to permit their narcotic agencies to function and to submit figures to this Board, an indication that even in time of war this Board has been able to function. The attitude of the Board has always been that it is helping governments to fulfil their voluntary obligations. This Point of view has set an interesting precedent. In its quasi-judicial capacity, the Board supervises fulfillment of certain obligations voluntarily assumed by governments, specified in the following provisions of the 1925 and 1931 Conventions: GENEVA CONVENTION OF 1925
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THE SUPERVISORY BODY COMPOSITION-APPOINTMENT The Supervisory Body was created by the 1931 Conference for the Limitation of the Manufacture of Narcotic Drugs. It was composed of four members, of which one was to be appointed by the Permanent Central Board, one by the Advisory Committee on Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, one by the Health Committee of the League of Nations, and one by the Office International d'Hygiene Publique. The Protocol of December 11, 1946 substituted the Commission on Narcotic Drugs for the Advisory Committee, and the World Health Organization for the Health Committee and the Office International d'Hygiene Publique, as appointing bodies.
THE TRAFFIC IN NARCOTICS Page 46 PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF MEMBERS The 1931 Convention does not expressly establish any requirements as to the pers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||