grude
April 18, 2012, 5:49pm
1
Some back ground:
The first law outright prohibiting the use of a specific drug in the United States was a San Francisco ordinance which banned the smoking of opium in opium dens in 1875. The reason cited was “many women and young girls, as well as young men of respectable family, were being induced to visit the Chinese opium-smoking dens, where they were ruined morally and otherwise.” This was followed by other laws throughout the country, and federal laws which barred Chinese people from trafficking in opium. Though the laws affected the use and distribution of opium by Chinese immigrants, no action was taken against the producers of such products as laudanum, a tincture of opium and alcohol, commonly taken as a panacea by white Americans. The distinction between its use by white Americans and Chinese immigrants was thus based on the form in which it was ingested: Chinese immigrants tended to smoke it, while it was often included in various kinds of generally liquid medicines often (but not exclusively) used by people of European descent. The laws targeted opium smoking, but not other methods of ingestion.[8] As a result of this discrepancy, some modern commentators believe that these laws were possibly racist in origin and intent.
The most important reason for the increase in opiate consumption during the 19th century was however the prescribing and dispensing of legal opiates by physicians and pharmacist to women with “female problems” (mostly to relieve painful menstruation). Between 150,000 and 200,000 opiate addicts lived in the United States in the late 19th century and between two-thirds and three-quarters of these addicts were women.[9]
This was followed by the Harrison Act, passed in 1914, which required sellers of opiates and cocaine to get a license. While originally intended to require paper trails of drug transactions[citation needed] between doctors, drug stores, and patients, it soon became a prohibitive law. The law’s wording was quite vague; it was originally intended as a revenue tracking mechanism that required prescriptions for opiates. It became legal precedent that any prescription for a narcotic given by a physician or pharmacist – even in the course of medical treatment for addiction - constituted conspiracy to violate the Harrison Act. In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled in Doremus that the Harrison Act was constitutional and in Webb that physicians could not prescribe narcotics solely for maintenance.[9] In the decision Jin Fuey Moy v. United States, 254 U.S. 189 (1920) the court upheld that it was a violation of the Harrison Act even if a physician provided prescription of a narcotic for an addict, and thus subject to criminal prosecution. The initial proponents of the Harrison Act did not support blanket prohibition of the drugs involved.[10] This is also true of the later Marijuana Tax Act in 1937. Soon, however, licensing bodies did not issue licenses, effectively banning the drugs.
The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances.
An area has a prohibition of drugs when its government uses the force of law to punish the use or possession of drugs which have been classified as controlled. A government may simultaneously have systems in place to regulate both controlled and non controlled drugs. Regulation controls the manufacture, distribution, marketi...
I remember reading somewhere that much like convenience stores will have smokers lined up outside waiting for it to open so they can get their cigarettes, pharmacies in NYC? before the Harrison act had addicts waiting outside for them to open so they could get their drug of choice for the day. I don’t remember where I read this but I’d be interested in any writings from the time that talk about conditions both before and after and the consequences of cocaine and opiates suddenly being prescription only.