Chapter Two : DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM

Although some of the substances now controlled by the Dangerous Drugs Acts have been known for many hundreds of years, control at a national or international level is essentially a 20th century phenomenon, and particularly a product of the last five decades. It is said that opium had been used for medicinal purposes for many centuries. The coca leaves from which cocaine is derived were used in Peru in remote times, possibly before the Incas. Their use was so extensive that by 1583 it has been estimated that some 100,000 baskets full were used in one year in the mines of Potosi alone. In present times, "the consumption of cocaine through the mastication of coca leaves in Peru is 40,000 kg. per annum which is 25 times larger than the amount of cocaine needed for medical purposes in the whole world". Peyote has been known to Europeans since the publication of the colonial Spanish chronicles on Mexico in 1541, although its use by the indigenous population occurred long before that. Cannabis was described in Chinese pharmacological literature as early as 2737 B.c. It spread to India in about 800 B.c. where it was, and is still, used exten-sively in Eyurvidic and Urani systems of medicine. It later came to Europe via the Middle East, perhaps some time in the 12th century. Dr. M. M. Glatt reports that "in Paris hashish became fashionable in the middle of the 19th century among bohemian artistic and literary circles".i The fashion, however, did not last, and alcohol soon assumed its former position of pre-eminence.

Given the Western European view of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries, the use of opium and cannabis was probably attributable to national character, or in some cases to national degeneracy. The Chinese smoked opium either because they had always smoked it, or because they were thought to be feckless.

This is not to say that China or countries in the Middle East did not see opium smoking as a problem. In 1729 the Emperor of China issued an edict prohibiting its use, and other similar edicts followed in the 19th century.2 In Turkey in the 16th century, the Sultan forbade the consumption of opium and cannabis; in 1884 Egypt also prohibited the consumption of cannabis.3
By 1900, the growth and development of Western pharma-cology had added a new perspective. Morphine was first extracted from opium in 1830, and its addictive properties were well known by the turn of the century. Sometimes they were not recognised, as illustrated in a quote from a paper by Clifford Allbut and W. E. Dixon, who asked in the vein of Huxley in the 1930s, "Wherein lies the harm of stimulants and narcotics? If they are short-cuts to happiness, why not use those paths so pleasant?" Later in the paper they are less enthusiastic—"It may however be taken as a safe rule in our own country at any rate, that the familiar use of opium in any form is to play with fire, and probably to catch fire." There were still other reasons for not using them—this time social ones; "not because of the degrading circumstances of it [but] because in Eastern towns it is the resort of the scum of the earth." In 1874 heroin was discovered, but not used in any major way until 1898, and by the early 1900s some of its dangers were being recognised. Other authorities saw the invention of the syringe by Pravaz in 1843 as being an important landmark. Dr. Ian James quotes Tanzi who, in 1909, bemoaned the fact that "40 years ago there were no morpho-maniacs; nowadays the syringe of Pravaz is everywhere." 5 In 1859 cocaine was discovered. Although first seen as a harmless stimulant, by the late 19th century this too was recognised as a dangerous drug, and in Britain was at one stage thought to be a more serious problem than the opiates.6

By 1900, certain political changes occurred which had con-siderable influence on the overall system of control, the most important being that America was already beginning to play an important part in world affairs. Morphine had been used exten-sively during the Civil War, and regular use continued long after the war ended. Many of the wounded had been given large quan-tities of morphine and developed a habit that was later politely referred to as "the Army Disease". This, coupled with the general tolerance towards addiction at the turn of the century, led one authority to estimate that the number of addicts was as high as 4% of the population; another thought it to be between 100,000 to more than 1 million,' and another, basing the figure on the amount of drugs imported, calculated it to be 175,000. Linde-smith also points to the tolerant attitude towards addiction and to the enormous ease with which narcotics could be obtained. He cites as an example an article by a doctor in 1899 who seriously suggested that alcoholics should be cured by being transformed into narcotic addicts. Similarly, Brill quotes articles which in 1878 show the rate of morphine and heroin addicts to be as high as 6 per 1,000 of the population in Michigan, and 1 per 1,000 in Tennessee. "Morphine was the primary drug of abuse, accounting for 86% of the addicts, while heroin was used in 1.3% only." 8 In New York narcotics were said to be "made up as candy and sold to school children."

Soon after the turn of the century the general climate changed. America was moving towards prohibition, and it was probably politically expedient to link narcotics with alcohol as the 'general drug problem'. Also, in 1898 the United States acquired the Philippine Islands which had a large number of opium users. A new policy was quickly formulated which would demonstrate this new way of thinking, and the use of opium in the Philippines for non-medical reasons was banned. Later the United States began canvassing European and Far Eastern powers interested in the problem, and most of the initiative for organising the First International Conference in 1909 came from President Theodore Roosevelt.

One of the first known attempts in Europe to control drugs was made in France in 1845. Later in Britain the 1868 Pharmacy and Poisons Act gave a small measure of control over opium and its preparations. In Part II of Schedule A the Act included "Opium or all preparations of opium or of poppies". This Act also prohibited any person from selling or offering to sell, dis-pense or compound poisons unless he was a chemist or a druggist, or from selling any poison unless the container was distinctly labelled. This was the only restriction on the sale of opium, although substances in Part I of Schedule A, such as arsenic, cyanide, etc., could only be sold to a person known to the seller.

The 1908 Pharmacy and Poisons Act amended the 1868 Act and Part I of the new schedule included "Opium and all preparations or admixtures containing 1% or more of morphine." Also, for the first time, sales of cocaine were restricted by the inclusion of "Coca, any preparations or admixtures of, containing 17,, or more of coca alkaloids." Those containing less than 1% could be sold by persons approved by the local authority. However, in 1900 most substances were still freely available and could be bought at any local chemist, and as Jeffrey Bishop notes, "Drugs of addiction were common in England long before there existed any control over their use."9 Yet within a decade controls at an international level had begun, culminating in 1920 with Britain's first Dangerous Drugs Act.

The important part that Britain played in the system of international control was partly related to her position as a leading world power in 1900 with interests in the Far East, together with the attitude of the British public at home. The increase in the speed of communications and the resulting exchange of ideas and attitudes may have worried the Liberal Government of the day and they could have been eager to protect their Far Eastern subjects from opiate addiction. The British moral conscience had also been stirred by the opium wars with China. Sir Harry Greenfield cites the instance of a British official (whom Howard Becker would doubtless describe as a moral entrepreneur) writing to Palmerston as far back as 1837 deprecating the "vast prohibited traffic in a vicious luxury."1° In 1893 the concern in Britain about drug taking in India was reflected by the appoint-ment by the Indian Government of a Royal Commission to review the position of opium and cannabis smoking on the Indian subcontinent.11 In 1906 the House of Commons passed a resolu-tion without a division reaffirming its belief that "the opium trade between India and China is morally indefensible."

When in 1906 China again banned the cultivation of the opium poppy, Britain in 1908 agreed to reduce exports from India for an experimental period of 3 years, provided China also reduced imports from other countries. It was in this spirit "to help the Chinese" in what was considered their enormous task, that a Conference met at the Palace Hotel in Shanghai in 1909.

The Shanghai Conference consisted of the representatives of 13 countries including Britain, China, Russia, Japan, France and the U.S.A." They had no power to sign a diplomatic act, but unanimously adopted 9 resolutions, which are summarised as follows. The use of opium in any form other than for medical purposes was held by almost every participating country to be a matter for prohibition. Drastic measures should be taken by each government to institute proper control over opium and any derivatives which appeared to produce similar effects and were liable to similar abuse. It was to be the duty of all countries to adopt reasonable measures to prevent the shipment of opium and its alkaloids to any country which prevented its entry. All governments possessing concessions or settlements in China which had not yet taken effective action towards the closing of opium divans ought to take this step as soon as possible.

The U.S. representative proposed a resolution which called for the immediate prohibition of opium smoking, but the conference resolved that "each delegate concerned be moved to its own government to take measures for the gradual suppression of the practice of opium smoking in its territories and possessions, with due regard to the circumstances of each concerned."" At later conferences similar attempts were made by the United States, but legalised opium smoking continued to flourish for another 40 or 50 years.

The efforts of the Shanghai delegates succeeded in arousing strong international public opinion which led, 3 years later, to the First International Opium Convention held at The Hague in 1912. This differed from the Shanghai Conference as it led to an international treaty rather than being merely a general conference. All the previous delegates attended with the exception of Austria—Hungary, and the aim was "to advance a step further on the road opened by the International Commission of Shanghai in 1909; determined to bring about the gradual suppression of the abuse of opium, morphine and cocaine . . .'"4 The Convention dealt with 4 main topics, raw opium, prepared opium, manufactured drugs, and what they called the special case of China. The question of including cannabis was discussed, but eventually it was decided that "the Conference considers it desirable to study the question of Indian hemp from the statistical and scientific point of view with the object of regulating its abuses, should the necessity thereof be felt by internal legislation or by international agreement."

It was accepted that production of raw opium should be controlled and its distribution regulated. Import or export should only be made by duly authorised persons, and each contracting party was required to limit the number of towns, ports and/or areas through which imports and exports passed. This was designed to centralise as far as possible the foreign trade routes and so restrict the number of control points. All export packages containing more than 5 kilos of opium should be marked in such a way as to indicate content. Finally, no exports were to be made to countries which prohibited entry, and exports were to be controlled to those countries which restricted imports. The manufacture, trade and use of prepared opium was to be gradu-ally suppressed whilst imports and exports were to be prohibited immediately. However, in those countries which were not ready to make immediate prohibition, this should be done as soon as possible. In those countries, exports were to be restricted in the same way as for raw opium.15

The manufacture and use of morphine, cocaine and their respective salts was to be limited to legitimate medical purposes and each party was to use its best endeavours to control or cause to be controlled the manufacture, import and export of these drugs by restricting their use to authorised persons. All such persons were required to keep records of any drugs they handled, and each party was to try to restrict imports to these authorised persons. Parties having treaties with China also undertook to take measures to prevent smuggling into China and to restrict and control opium smoking in any of the leased territories. China in return was to take similar measures and also "to promulgate pharmacy laws for Chinese subjects."

The general spirit of The Hague Convention extended the principles and aims of the Shanghai Conference, but it was later realised that further improvements were needed. For although the production and distribution of raw opium was to be con-trolled, no limitation was placed on the quantity to be produced or distributed, except in a very general way. It had been accepted that the use of prepared opium was to be suppressed, but as S. H. Bailey says, "the situation was held to be then unripe for the total and immediate prohibition of the trade."" The result was that the European powers continued to allow opium smoking in the Far East territories and justified this on the grounds either of economic necessity, or by blaming China for not preventing smuggling. The manufacture and use of morphine, cocaine and their respective salts was to be limited to medical and legitimate purposes, but no general estimates of world needs were made, and no limitation could be placed on the manufacture. Neither was there any machinery which would put these principles into effect, except to require parties to 'use their best endeavours' to establish methods of control. It was 20 years later before a more concerted attempt was made to close some of these gaps.

Article 20 of The Hague Convention required "the contracting powers to examine the possibility of enacting laws or regulations making it a penal offence to be in illegal possession of raw opium, prepared opium, morphine, cocaine and their respective salts . . ." Eight years later, Britain passed the first Dangerous Drugs Act on 1st September 1920. The Act itself which is short, containing only 17 sections, faithfully abides by the Convention. It attempts to establish a system of control over import, export and handling of the drugs to which the Convention applies. The final section sets out the penalties. On summary conviction the maximum penalty was a fine not exceeding £200 or 6 months imprisonment with or without hard labour, or both. For a second, or subsequent conviction the maximum penalty was a fine not exceeding £500 or 2 years imprisonment with or without hard labour, or both. Provisions were also made for regulations to be made for manu-facture, sale, possession and distribution of these drugs.

The 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act was not only the first Dangerous Drugs Act in Britain, but it was also the first act of domestic and social legislation to be passed as a result of an international agreement. Both conferences were concerned with control of the opiates and cocaine which were then considered to be the most dangerous drugs, or at least the drugs most readily accessible to control. Some attempt was made to include cannabis, but that decision was postponed. Why drugs such as the opiates and cocaine were chosen can be explained partly in terms of certain historical changes which led Western powers into greater contact with opium producing countries together with the American attitude and the rather curious circumstances surrounding the use of morphine, and the number of morphine addicts after the Civil War. As far as Britain was concerned, there is no evidence to suggest that the use of opiates or cocaine was seen to be a problem prior to the 1912 Hague Convention, and the British involvement in the early treaties can be largely explained in terms of the Far Eastern possessions. As a party to such a treaty, Britain of course had to enact her own legislation, hence the 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act. The delay in introducing this Act after The Hague Convention of 1912 was due to the 1914-18 war. During that war there was an outbreak of cocaine use amongst the Armed Forces which led to an early form of control under the Defence of the Realm Regulations. It is doubtful if this had any bearing on the later 1920 Act.

The first Dangerous Drugs Act was therefore highly selective in the type of drugs it controlled, and based on international political considerations as well as social and moral ones. It also meant that parties involved in this system were obliged to control drugs irrespective of their own domestic position — a factor which is particularly relevant to current discussions about cannabis.
The special way in which drugs were selected for control did not go entirely unnoticed. One doctor in Britain quite clearly thought that drugs such as alcohol and tobacco should have been included. These were, after all, the most common 'dangerous drugs' in Britain, but presumably there were good political and sociological reasons why they were not included in the control machinery. However, in a letter to the British Medical Journal in 1922 it was pointed out that "so many people who preach against the inordinate use of opium and cocaine should include also in their condemnation tobacco and alcohol which are equally pernicious . . . Everyone in the medical world knows the chronic effect of nicotine poisoning . . . and still no effort has been made to stop the growing evil, although its victims must number fully 1,000 for every one from opium and cocaine . . . The effects of the excessive use of alcohol on the brain, liver, heart and lungs are too well known by all doctors to require recapitulating here."" There was no follow-up to this correspondence.

During the 1920s and 1930s other drugs were slowly added to the international list with the recommendation of one country leading to a general agreement between all signatories, which in turn led to domestic legislation in Britain as each international agreement became ratified. This method was considered the most appropriate and effective way of dealing with the problem if international control was to be meaningful, as it was believed that isolated action by one country could have no permanent effect while other countries allowed free imports and exports. Experience in the 1930s suggested that trade tended to be diverted to the latter. Seen in this way, there may be a tendency to view international control as a sort of coming together of people or nations with a moral conscience, determined to stamp out an evil. This, I think, is a gross over-simplification, and in practice it turned out to be much more complicated than that, as vested interests and international politics have also played a large and important role.

H. L. May has suggested that when a commodity in interna-tional trade has both a legal and an illegal use, national control alone, without international collaboration, is not fully effective. The smaller the bulk, the higher the value of the commodity, and the greater the difficulty of control. When there is no national interest to resist international control, 'politics' will play a negligible role.'8 May sees narcotic drugs as having a legal and an illegal use, as being small in bulk and high in value and as far as most countries are concerned, there is no national interest to control them. May's point clearly identifies the necessities and difficulties of control, but it is precisely because of their economic importance that vested interests have loomed so large. One could also add that they have a high moral value too, so that it can appear, at least superficially, that those countries who are the most eager to embark on control are those having the highest moral responsibility.

It will be remembered that the impetus for the Shanghai Conference came largely from the United States and to some extent from Britain. Both countries agreed to The Hague Convention by which they undertook to control the production, sale and transfer of opium and coca products. As Rufus King has pointed out in 1957, with reference to the United States — "Since, however, neither opium poppies nor coca shrubs were being grown extensively in this country, our undertaking to curb production was a mere formality apparently agreed upon to encourage countries which were producers to join in restricting supplies in the world market."'" (Italics original). In other words, the Great Powers who were not producers, were merely protect-ing themselves against the lesser powers who were. King goes on to say that "American efforts to induce other nations to forego the production and marketing of drugs so as to rid us of the illicit importer has never borne much fruit. Our friends have been apathetic and our cold war enemies have been flatly uncoopera-tive." This is not a new problem, it has been a feature of inter-national control from the time of the Hague Convention. In the Convention's final Protocol in 1914, it made an "urgent . . . representation to the signatory Powers which have not yet ratified the Convention nor expressed their intention of doing so with a view to induce them to declare their readiness shortly to deposit their ratifications in order that the Convention may come into force as soon as possible." By 1914 only 11 countries had ratified it, though others agreed to do so. Eventually it had to be written into the Treaty of Versailles before it became fully effective.

Lindesmith also views international discussions on control of drugs as often "highly charged with emotion and filled with political cross-currents, mutual recriminations, charges and counter-charges."'" He illustrates the point with numerous examples, going back to the East India Company which was heavily censured for selling opium to China." In the 1920s all the European powers with Far Eastern possessions in which opium smoking was permitted were assailed by protectionist minded critics in the United States, and particularly by nationalistic anti-colonial powers in the Far East. The European powers retaliated as best they could by pressing the United States to report on its own prohibition scheme in the Philippines or by blaming China for producing too much. Japan was criticised in the late 1930s for sending large quantities of opium into China which was later referred to by the Chinese Government as "a form of genocide", and H. L. May reports that the Japanese invaders did all they could to encourage the trade. After World War Two, when opium smoking was banned in the Far East, Thailand was blamed for not following suit and thereby nullifying the efforts of Thailand's neighbours to solve their own problems. China was, up to 1956, regularly accused by the United States and Formosa of deliber-ately encouraging the production of opium for political ends. A Protocol in 1953 still needed 10 other signatures 3 years later for it to become effective, and none of the opium producing countries had become parties. Only half the members of the United States had ratified the 1961 Single Convention by 1970. Lindesmith also makes the interesting observation that countries in which there is an illicit drug traffic with supplies originating outside the country invariably blame the country of origin for their problems; no blame appears to attach to those countries which provide the market for the illicit supplies.22

Most of the difficulties of the producing countries have been caused by their understandable reluctance to stop producing fairly lucrative cash crops when there are no economic substitutes. Britain and the United States had no such problems to face. Furthermore, in Britain when the 1920 Act was passed, although seen as a moral achievement, which may have assuaged some unpleasant feelings left over from the opium wars, in reality it affected few people, as those who smoked opium in any quantity were small groups of Chinese living in and around the ports. These were hardly influential either in terms of fashion, ideas, or economic power. No large business interests were affected then as they are for alcohol or tobacco today; some importing/export-ing companies were affected, but only in an administrative way." Compare for example the attempts in Britain by various temper-ance societies to define alcohol as a 'drug', illustrating their arguments with evidence to show that alcohol causes as much social misery as the opiates. These arguments have never made much impact, and when alcohol was prohibited in America, prohibition did not last long. A recent attempt to introduce the 'breathaliser' in Britain was hotly resisted by the Licensed Victuallers Association, in spite of the enormous evidence which showed there was a direct relationship between the use of their product and death and injury in road accidents. It is only recently that some impact has been made in the attempts to see tobacco as a 'drug', but nevertheless, a move to have all cigarette packets marked showing that cigarettes may be dangerous to health was originally opposed on the grounds that it was 'unnecessary'.

In spite of the political recriminations and the selectivity of certain drugs for control, the early control mechanisms in Britain continued unabated especially during the 8 years between The Hague Convention and the 1920 Dangerous Drugs Acts which was a period dominated by the 1914-18 war. The important social changes produced by the war led to the first serious attempt at domestic control of drugs under the Defence of the Realm Regu-lations which, as has already been noted, preceded the first Dangerous Drugs Act. The period after the war, especially in the early 1920s, was also one of social upheaval, and during this time there occurred a further outbreak of cocaine use which led to the 1923 Dangerous Drugs Amendment Act. By 1926, how-ever, Britain had, as far as drug taking was concerned, once more settled down to a more stable position.

In 1914, as part of the general war measures, a restriction was placed on the export, except under licence, of a number of commodities including opium.24 In 1916 it became apparent that cocaine was being peddled to and by prostitutes in London, and a number of cases were reported to the police of it being given to Canadian soldiers, but no detailed information on the extent of this traffic is available. Later that year, the Defence of the Realm Regulations, No. 40B, made it an offence with a maxi-mum penalty of 6 months imprisonment for the gift or sale of any 'intoxicants', i.e. any sedative, narcotic or stimulant, to a member of the Armed Forces, but the Regulations did not apply to possession or sale to civilians. Accordingly, in May 1916 the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, with the full support of the General Officer Commanding the London District, asked that the Regulations should be extended. Further representations were made in July after a number of civilians had been convicted for offences of selling cocaine to the Armed Forces. The Com-missioner said in his letter of 20th July, that it was necessary "to stamp out the evil now rapidly assuming huge dimensions [and that] special legislation is imperatively needed". He asked that "the necessary powers may be obtained with the least possible delay". But the Commissioner also thought that "Great as is this need, however, in my judgement protective measures are not less needed in the interests of the civilian population at present gravely menaced." He went on to say, "I wish to urge to the utmost of my ability, that it will be of no value in any restrictive measures merely to deal with illicit sales; it is essential if the problem is to be seriously grappled with, that the un-authorised possession of the drug shall be an offence punishable at least in certain circumstances with imprisonment without the option of a fine." 25

The Regulations were accordingly amended, and an Order in Council of 28th July 1916 added to the previous Defence of the Realm Regulations. As a result only authorised persons were allowed to possess cocaine and an authorised person was defined as a member of the medical profession or persons holding permits issued by the Secretary of State, or persons who had received the drug on a doctor's prescription. It is interesting to note that at that time morphine abuse was not considered as serious or so urgent a matter as cocaine, and it was thought that different regulations would be wanted for morphine control, although no action was to be taken at that time. During the same year it was noticed that opium was being smuggled out to China, and the Government accordingly issued a Proclamation 26 prohibiting the right to possess opium under the same conditions as for cocaine. 27 In this way, both opium and cocaine were placed under control long before the first Dangerous Drugs Act came into operation, but as regards opium the control was to prevent illegal exports to China and not because of any defined problem in Britain.

In December 1916 the Regulations were further amended, largely to give the Secretary of State power to direct that any person who was convicted of an offence against these Regulations should cease to be classified as such. Also in December 1916 it was thought that certain special enquiries should no longer be left to the police—though it is not clear what was meant by this or why the police were no longer thought suitable. However, an official in the Home Office who was at that time working in con-nection with cocaine and opium control was, under paragraph 8 of Regulation 40B, directed to "inspect all books required to be kept and all records." This was the beginning of supervision by the Home Office of persons dealing in drugs.

Further changes in the Regulations in May 1917 gave the police of a rank not below that of Inspector, power to examine all books and records required to be kept under the Regulations.

Later the reports of these inspections noted that cocaine and opium were now rarely used and then only on a medical prescrip-tion, so that many chemists had ceased to stock them. There were few references to the use of cocaine and opium outside the Metropolitan district, although occasionally some use occurred in small provincial towns. The Chief Constable of Tiver-ton, Devon, in a letter dated January 29th 1917, reported that cocaine was being used extensively in the area by a large number of men and young persons. Within the Metropolitan district in the first 6 months of the new Regulations coming into operation, some 16 persons were prosecuted for offences involving cocaine, of whom 7 were women, and 39 persons were prosecuted for offences involving opium. None of these were British in origin, 35 being Chinese, 3 American and one being French. The traffic in cocaine which in the spring of 1916 had assumed alarming proportions had by then been "almost extinguished", but it was feared that it would "break out into activity" again if the Regu-lations were removed. It was thought that the complete eradica-tion of the opium habit "was likely to be more difficult" as it was "most prevalent amongst the Chinese in the East End of London and of long standing." There was a growing recognition that permanent legislation ought to be implemented at the end of the war, which was further accepted in February 1919 following the death of a well-known actress, Billie Carleton, from an over-dose of cocaine.'s In a letter dated 19th February 1919, the Director of Criminal Investigation wrote, "In view of the un-doubted growth in the drug habit both in America and in this country . . . the time seems to have come for enacting permanent legislation to take the place of Regulation 40B of the Defence of the Realm Regulations." He also suggested that the police would be greatly assisted if each chemist was also required to keep a register of all drugs purchased by him and to keep account of all sales. The Director had his way, and the Defence of the Realm Regulation remained in force until the 1920 Act. The Regulations made under that Act included the Director's sugges-tion about chemists recording of sales, but in the light of previous reports it is not certain what he meant by "the undoubted growth of the drug habit."

Soon after the 1920 Act came into operation, there was another outbreak of cocaine abuse. As early as 1922 the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department had informed the House of Commons that he was "singularly alive to the fact that the penalties imposed under the Dangerous Drugs Act are insuffi-ciently deterrent and an amending Bill has been drafted." In 1921 there were 56 prosecutions for offences involving cocaine and by 1922 this had increased to 69. The problem did not seem to be confined to Britain. It was reported later in the year that "In Paris alone the number of those caught [trafficking in cocaine] has increased from 42 in 1917 to 212 last year [i.e. 1921]. The bulk is said to be imported from Germany and among the troops occupying the Rhineland. In France, as in this country, severer penalties are called for to check this toxic peril." More severe penalties were asked for in Britain too. In the House of Com-mons in 1922, the Home Secretary refused two requests to increase the penalty to flogging or 12 strokes of the cat, for offenders caught trafficking in cocaine. On 27th March 1922, the Home Secretary replying to another question said he was aware that cocaine, opium and other drugs were being smuggled into Britain, and it was known that Chinese seamen were addicted to opium smoking, but the police were not aware of any organised traffic. In 1923 the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Bill was intro-duced to the Commons and quickly passed the second reading. The Committee stage was equally brief; there were two main amendments, each moved by the Home Secretary, and within 3 months of the second reading the Bill received the Royal Assent on 17th May 1923. It came into force at once.

The 1923 Act largely amended Sections 10 and 13 of the 1920 Act and allowed the police to obtain a search warrant if there were reasonable grounds for suspecting an offence had been com-mitted. It also extended the range of offenders to include false declarations to obtain licences to distribute drugs, and it was an offence to "aid, abet, counsel or procure the commission of an offence" under the 1920 Act. It also increased penalties to £500 and/or 12 months' imprisonment with or without hard labour for summary conviction and to £1,000 and/or 10 years' imprison-ment with or without hard labour for indictment.

The effect seemed to be fairly dramatic. Whereas in 1923 there were 68 prosecutions for cocaine, by 1927 they had steadily decreased to 1. There was also a reduction for offenders involving morphine from 44 prosecutions in 1923 to 22 in 1927. In the House of Commons satisfaction was also expressed. "The addi-tional powers given by the Act have been found to be of great value . . . the heavier penalties are having a deterrent effect." After 1927 prosecutions for cocaine never again reached such a peak and even during the 1950s there were only 14 over a 10-year period. Another interesting feature of the 1923 Act was that it was the only Dangerous Drugs Act until 1967 which was intro-duced as a result of domestic changes as opposed to changes at the international control level.

By 1923 then, as a result of international conventions and the special conditions of the war years, Britain already had some measure of control, albeit confined to a small number of selected drugs. Apart from the two short periods of cocaine abuse, the second of which led to the 1923 Act, there were no serious demands for additional legislation or control. Unfortunately there are no figures available to give detailed accounts of the extent of these outbreaks, or of those who were seen to be the drug takers. It is only possible to guess that the majority were from the Armed Forces, although the death of Billie Carlton also suggests that the users were perhaps fairly widely distributed throughout the social classes. Neither is it possible to know of the subsequent careers of those who took cocaine up to the early 1920s, but the approval which greeted the results of the 1923 Act may mean that they either stopped using these drugs, or simply went elsewhere. Whatever the result, it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that drug taking began to be seen again as a social problem.

In the United States in 1914, 2 years after The Hague Con-vention, the Government introduced the Harrison Act. This, as H. Brill states, "was given the form of a tax and licensing Act for legislative convenience, but was in no sense a revenue measure; the clear intention was to eliminate the non-medical use of cocaine and the opiates." 29 The Act itself left the status of the addict almost unchanged—as did the 1920 Act in Britain—and it did not make addiction illegal and did not stop doctors from prescribing drugs, but in 1922, the position had changed, and as Lindesmith points out, "the Supreme Court decisions made it impossible for doctors to treat addicts in any way acceptable to law enforcement officials." 3° In 1924 the manufacture of heroin was prohibited, and in 1927 cannabis became subject to Federal control through the Marihuana Tax Act which, as one authority has suggested, was a straightforward racist act, since at that time the vast majority of marihuana users were negroes.   
In the 1920s the American and British systems went separate ways; the one controlled by the Harrison Act, the Supreme Court decisions and influenced by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics; the other influenced by the Rolleston Committee which led to the establishment of the so-called British system. I now want to show how this legislation developed and how it was at first more related to the international control system than to changes in the domestic situation.

REFERENCES
1. For a discussion on the early use of drugs see the following: Schur, E. M. Narcotic Addiction in Britain and America, S.S.P. London, 1966, p. 18; Zapata-Ortiz, V. 'The Chewing of Coca Leaves in Peru', Int. J. of Addiction, 1970, vol. 5, p. 287; Guerra, F. 'Mexican Phantas-tica', Brit. J. of Addiction, 1967, vol. 62, Nos. 1 & 2, p. 173 and 174; Lindesmith, A. R. The Addict and the Law, Indiana University Press, 1965, p. 224; Glatt, M. M. 'Historical Note', Brit. J. of Addiction, 1969, vol. 64, No. 1, p. 99.
2. Lindesmith, A. R., op. cit., p. 194.
3. Cannabis—Report by the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence, H.M.S.O., 1968, p. 74.
4. Lewis, Sir A. 'Historical Perspectives', Brit. J. of Addiction, 1968, vol. 63, p. 241.
5. James, I. P. 'Delinquency and Heroin Addiction in Britain', Brit. J. of Criminology, 1969, vol. 9, No. 2., p. 108-9.
6. Freud believed in its value for the treatment of morphine addicts and in 1884 advocated its use as a euphorant. Ernest Jones his biographer says he became in danger of being a public menace, but after increasing his friend Fleischl's miseries by trying to cure his morphine addiction with cocaine and later having a patient of his own die from cocaine addiction, Freud too recognised and accepted its dangers—see Sir A. Lewis, 'Historical Perspectives', op. cit., p. 241.
7. See Schur, E. M. Narcotic Addiction: Britain and America, S.S.P. Lon-don, 1966, p. 45 and Lindesmith, A. R., op. cit., p. 99.
8. From Phillipson, R. W. (ed.), Modern Trends in Drug Dependence and Alcoholism, Butterworth, London, 1961, p. 4.
9. Bishop, J. 'Commentary on the Management and Treatment of Drug Addicts in the U.K.', in Nyeswander, Marie et al, The Drug Addict as a Patient, Grune and Stratton, London, 1956, p. 149.
10. Greenfield, Sir H. 'The International Background', in Drug Dependence, I.S.T.D., London, 1970, p. 4.
11. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 7 vols., Simla 1897. It is thought to be still the most authoritative report ever produced on cannabis.
12. The other countries were Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Austria-Hungary and Siam.
13. From May, H. L. International Conciliation, Carnegie Endowment, New York, 1948, p. 320.
14. The International Opium Convention, 1912, and subsequent papers, H.M.S.O., 1921, Cmd. 1520, p. 235.
15. Further details of these provisions can be found in Articles 1-8, Ibid, p. 236 and 237.
16. Bailey, S. H. The Anti-Drug Campaign, King & Son, London, 1935, p. 24-29.
17. Brit. med. J., 1922, i, 862.
18. May, H. L. op. cit., p 303.
19. King, R. 'Narcotics Drug Laws and Enforcement Policies', in Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1957, p. 115.
20. Lindesmith, A. R. The Addict and the Law, op. cit., p. 193.
21. See also League of Nations Report, H.M.S.O., 1925, Cmd. 2461, p. 21- 29, for a more detailed account.
22. Lindesmith, A. R. The Addict and the Law, op. cit., p. 193.
23. See Bailey, S. H. op. cit., for a discussion on the amounts of morphine produced 20 years after The Hague Convention.
24. I am particularly grateful to Mr. H. B. Spear of the Drugs Department of the Home Office, and the Home Office itself, for helping to provide a good deal of the information on this particular section.
25. Spear, H. B. 'The Growth of Heroin Addiction in the United Kingdom', Brit. J. of Addiction, 1969, vol. 64, p. 245-256.
26. Under Sec. 43 of Customs Consolidation Act, 1876.
27. Int. Opium Convention, 1912-Statement of action taken by British Government, H.M.S.O., op. cit.
28. Spear, H. B. 'The Growth of Heroin Addiction in the United Kingdom', op. cit., p. 248.
29. Brill, H. in Law and Contemporary Problems, op. cit., p. 5.
30. Lindesmith, A. R. The Addict and the Law, op. cit., p. 7.