Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 42 Part 1.djvu/1459

 1432 SIXTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS. Sess. IV. Ch. 190. 1923. N¤¤·¤¤¢i¤<k¤c¤——¤¤¤· * * * Most of the heroin addicts are comparatively young, a portion of them being boys and girls under the age of twenty. · This is also true of cocaine addicts,” and as this fillqport is in harmony with the opinion of many who have care y investited the subject; and _ Wilireas the annual production of opium is_approx1mately one thousand five hundred tons, of which approximately one hundred tons, according to the best available information, is sufficient for the world’s medicinal and scientific needs, and the growth of coca leaves is likewise greatly in excess of what is required for the same needs, and thus vast quantities of each are available for the manufacture of habit-forming narcotic drugs for illicit sale and consumption; and _ _ Whereas opium is obtained in paying quantities from poppies cultivated in small areas of India, Persia, and Turkey, where the soil and climate are peculiarly adapted to the production of poppies containing opium rich in morphia, codeine, and other narcotic derivatives; and Whereas in Persia and Turkey the growth of the poppy and the production of opium therefrom, resulting in large revenues to those respective governments, is controllable by virtue of their sovereign power to limit the exportation thereof and to restrict production to the quantity actually required for strictly medicinal and scientific u ses; and Whereas the Britisli It-Egvemment in India, which derives large revenues from the growth of the poppy and the production of opium therefrom, has full power to limit production to the amount acgially requ.ired for strictly medicinal and scientific purposes; an Whereas the production of coca leaves (Erythroxylum coca) is limited to certain areas of Peru and Bolivia and the Netherlands possession of Java, and their production is controllable by virtue of the sovereign power of those Governments to limit the exportation thereof and to restrict production to the quantities actually required for strictly medicinal and scientific purposes; and Whereas the antinarcotic laws of a majority of the larger nations of the world provide severe penalties for dispensing habit-forming narcotic drugs without a record of the amount thereof dispensed, thus lproviding reliable data from which a reasonably accurate calcu ation can be made of the amount of these drugs needed for strictly medicinal and scientific purposes; and V°“8·l"‘°”‘ Whereas on January 23, 1912, as the result of the meeting of the International Opium Commission at Shanghai, China, in 1909, and the conference at The Hague in 1912, a treaty was made between the United States of America and other powers which was intended to suppress the illicit tratlic in habit-forming narcotic drugs, and notwithstanding that upward of seven years have passed since its ratification, the treaty and the laws in pursuance thereof subsequently adopted b the contracting powers have utterly failed to suppress such illicit trailic, by reason of the fact that the treaty attempted to regulate the transportation and sale of these drugs without adequate restriction upon production, the source or root of the evil; and Whereas failure of such treaty and the laws adopted in pursuance thereof to provide adequate restrictions upon production has resulted in extensive and ilagrant violations of the laws by reason of the fact that the great commercial value of these drugs, the large financial gains erived from handling them, and the smallness of their bulk, which renders detection in transportation and sale exceedingly dificult, have induced and encouraged the un-