NARCOTICS IN AMERICA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 143, 19 June 1922, Page 8

NARCOTICS IN AMERICA.

LIFE-SAPPING DRUGS. DRASTIC LAW PASSED. /" (Frc-m Our Owu Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 16. The illicit use of morphine and cocaine has spread in the United States witb such alarming rapidity and to such an enormous extent that an agitation, which was recently inaugurated in various parts of the country, has culminated in a movement to rid America of the evil, and a new law has just been enacted by two well known United States politicians as co-authors, having for its object the banishment of life-sapping drugs in the land. The Anti-Narcotic Bill was mainly drawn up 'by Representative John F. Miller, of Washington, and it had no difficulty in passing through the House and also the United States Senate. The new law is the most drastic measure ot prevention adopted by tny country on earth in connection with the manufacture and distribution of drugs such as opium and its derivatives, cocaine and the salts and the derivatives thereof. The measure provides among other things: —(1) A Federal Narcotics Control Board —composed of the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Commerce —empowered to control the whole narcotic programme, regulate manufacture for medicinal purposes only, and prevent shipments to or from any country that does not cooperato in suppressing the vice. (2) Increases the penalty of violators to a fine of 5000 dollars and imprisonment fot ten years. (3) Deportation of alien offenders and undesirable aliens. (4) Controls transhipments and in transit shipments by rail and water. (5) Enables the United States to comply with 'the provisions of the International Opium Convention of 1912, commonly known as the Ha<rue Convention. In the course of a statement, Representative Miller, one of the joint authors of the bill, exposed the growth of the dope evil in America, and said the illicit use of morphine and cocaine was causing deep concern to American civilisation. He showed that the evil had grown to immense proportions in the country, and added that the number of drug adtliets in the United States was now nothing short of alarming, reports from every locality indicating that the unfortunates were on the increase. "It is our duty," he said, "to first protect our own people from the illicit use of these drugs, and we should in all good conscience assist the Chinese and other nationals who are now attempting to heal themselves not only of the use of opium prepared for smoking, but other narcotic drugs equally deleterious. Under the present law narcotic drugs such as morphine and cocaine are manufactured In the United States, exported to other countries, especially Japan, and from Japan these drugs are shipped into China or smuggled back into the United States and illicitly peddled to our own people. "The United States and England are tho two countries producing the greatest amount of manufactured opium and cocaine and coca leaf products. Regulations of our exports, therefore, deal with but one-half of the problem of preventing manufactured drugs from reaching foTcijm lands, which may make illegitimate use of them. "England, while maintaining drastic export restrictions by licenses issued under the British Dangerous Druos Act, has by our previous faulty legislative treatment of in-transit shipments been unsupported by the United States in enforcing British laws. By the enactment of the new law the two principal producing nations of the world will have tir.i»„.| i p s'ammno- on* the illicit use of narcotic drugs the world over."