-Caveat Lector- The following article was printed in 1957 from a speech made by a Yale Law graduate. Excerpt: "Year after year, the pattern remained the same. Addicts and small-fry peddlers 105 were arrested by the thousands;106 the traffic prospered; and the overlords at the top of the illicit operations never got near "the stuff" and were rarely brought to account.107 This fantastic black market, where smuggled drugs brought thousands of times their intrinsic value, remained an exclusively American phenomenon, playing its part, along with bootlegging, in the rise of gangsters and the emergence of bigtime organized crime." The more things change, the more they stay the same, no? Linda Minor NARCOTIC DRUG LAWS AND ENFORCEMENT POLICIES By RUFUS KING *A.B. 1938, Princeton University; LL.B. 1943, Yale University. Member of the New York, Maryland, and District of Columbia bars. Chairman, Committee on Narcotics and Alcohol, Section of Criminal Law, American Bar Association. Counsel, Senate Crime Commission, 1951; Senate Committee on Crime and Law Enforcement in the District of Columbia, 1953. Contributor to legal periodicals. Reprinted from the symposium on NARCOTICS Published as the Winter, 1957, issue of LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS Duke University School of Law Durham, N. C. The King's argument was that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense. The Queen's argument was that ' if something wasn't done about it in less than no time, she'd have everybody executed, all round. . . . Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Repressing the narcotic drug traffic by criminal sanctions is a comparatively recent innovation in the United States. Addicted persons have enjoyed the appellation "dope fiend" for only some forty years,1 while the "pusher" of pre-World-War-I society was usually the local pharmacist, grocer, confectioner, or general-store-keeper.2 In fact, until the turn of the twentieth century, the use of opium and its derivatives was generally less offensive to Anglo-American public morals than the smoking of cigarettes.3 In many significant features, the patterns we have evolved to deal with this problem are atypical. First, the problem itself is viewed by most other civilized nations as one involving health rather than criminality, and it is virtually nonexistent in the view and experience of some. Moreover, although the ingestion and injection of narcotic substances seem patently to be matters primarily of local concern, the federal government has innovated our repressive policies, almost sua sponte, and a federal agency has been the dominant enforcement instrument from the very outset; even the initial impetus came, in part at least, from a treaty commitment undertaken by the federal government-far removed from considerations of state police power or local public policy. Furthermore, Congress has never, before or since relied upon the federal tax laws to achieve an objective so remotely connected with the collection of revenues,4 and no comparable law-enforcement assignment (disregarding the troublesomely analogous Prohibition experiment) has ever been given to the Treasury Department. Most notably unusual, however, this chronicle of federal intervention is an epoch of dismal failure. Congress has expanded the list of federal crimes in support of local enforcement efforts a dozen times in the last half century, and with no other exception (again, omitting the Volstead Act), the results have been salutary: federal intervention has caused the problem to diminish or disappear.5 But this has not been true of the illicit drug traffic: the costs of drug-law enforcement have increased steadily, 6 and though estimates of our addict population are manipulatable in a wide range, no one suggests that addiction has ever shrunk to negligible proportions or ceased to be widespread.7 An addict cut off from his supply for a few days "kicks the habit"; so the mere survival of this substantial community of "users" over the years over forty years-is unanswerable proof that illicit traffickers have never been deterred from meeting the addict's needs.8 The United States adhered to the Hague Opium Convention of 1912, by which it undertook to control the domestic production, sale, use, and transfer of opium and coca products.9 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.10 There was, of course, perfect logic in our pursuit of this aim: if we could have induced all nations where raw drugs might be grown to clamp on tight controls, our domestic traffic, dependent on smuggling, would long since have disappeared. We have remained staunch in our support of international action to control supplies, adhering to subsequent conventions,11 and working diligently through the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the autonomous Permanent Central Opium Board.12 Most recently, we have been promoting the idea of an International Opium Monopoly, with plenary powers of inspection and control.13 But American efforts to induce other nations to forego the production and marketing of drugs, so as to rid us of the illicit importer, have never borne much fruit.14 Our friends have been apathetic,15 and our cold-war enemies have been flatly uncooperative.16 Excepting the duration of World War II, when many opium-producing countries were cut off and travel restrictions put most smugglers out of business, narcotic drugs have continued to flow freely into our illicit market.17 Amore significant aftermath of our participation in the 1912 convention was the Harrison Act,18 passed by the Sixty-third Congress principally to comply with our undertaking to control the domestic sale, use, and transfer of opium and coca products.19 This act has provided the basis for domestic law enforcement, vis-a'-vis the illicit drug traffic, ever since its enactment. As has been observed, it is not a forthright criminal statute, but rather a regulatory measure in the ill-tailored guise of a federal revenue enactment. It must be remembered that, except for smoking opium, which had long been contraband 21 there were no effective controls on any part of the traffic in drugs prior to 1914.22 Addicted persons who sought comfort or intoxication could buy whatever they wanted from any supplier, at moderate prices;23 and those who wished to avail themselves of medical care could apply to any member of the profession 24 for any indicated treatment, including gradual withdrawal or even a permanent "comfort" regime.25 On its face, therefore, the Harrison Act seemed better designed to bring the traffic into observable and controllable channels26 than to repress all nonmedical uses by transforming a large group of hitherto law abiding citizens into felons. The heart of the act is an excise tax, imposed at the rate of one cent per ounce27 on opium, isonipecaine, coca leaves, and other opiates and their derivatives,28 to be evidenced by stamps affixed to the package or container and payable by the importer, manufacturer, producer, or compounder-i.e., the first domestic handler. Other provisions operate, in theory, at least, to facilitate the collection of this not-too-exorbitant impost. Thus, it is unlawful for anyone to purchase, sell, dispense, or distribute any narcotic drugs, unless he does so in or from the original stamped package.29 It is also unlawful for anyone to sell, barter, exchange, or give away such drugs, except pursuant to a written order from the recipient, prepared on special forms supplied by the Treasury Department.30 Persons in any vocation involving the handling of narcotic drugs-eg., importers, manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacists, doctors, dentists, researchers, etc.-also are required to register with the Treasury Department and pay an occupational tax graduated from one to twenty-four dollars.31 Registrants are required to keep records, available at all times for inspection by law-enforcement officers, and to file returns as required by the Secretary of the Treasury.32 In 1937, marijuana was subjected to a similar pattern of control,33 except that the tax rate was prohibitory-one dollar per ounce on any transfer of marijuana to any person registered under the provisions of the act, and one hundred dollars per ounce on any transfer to an unregistered person. 34 It will readily be observed that this pattern provides the strictest kind of controls for the so-called legitimate traffic in drugs-i.e., for whatever supplies are permitted to pass through the regulated channels, covered by the Harrison Act. The registration and return provisions assure that all legitimate traffickers are known to the authorities, while the revenue stamps, the official transfer forms, and the records required to be kept at each stage bring each individual transaction into plain view for official scrutiny. Moreover, to facilitate enforcement, the complexity of this pattern has been exploited to multiply penalties and sanctions: besides the general tax-law provisions which punish evasion-failure to file returns, fraud, counterfeiting of stamps, and the like35 -the mere possession of drugs in unstamped containers is "prima facie evidence of a violation"36 drugs in unstamped containers are subject to seizure and forfeiture;37 any act requiring registration-ie., any "trafficking" without registering-is made a separate offense, independent of the failure to register per se;38 and the act of transporting drugs is a crime for any person not registered or protected by certain specific exemptions-e.g., common carriers, employees of registrants, public officials acting in the scope of their duties, etc.39 During its entire four decades, the Harrison Act has been an unqualified success as a strictly regulatory measure.40 Its weaknesses and failures show up only in its repressive applications, where it has been sweepingly invoked as a prohibition enactment.41 By diligent police work, the authorities have seen to it that narcotic drugs, once lawfully imported and consigned to registered distributors and dispensers, rarely go astray, even in minute quantities; but they have never been able to cope with the enormous flow of smuggled drugs that are distributed to addict-consumers without ever entering the regulated channels at all.42 Perhaps these forty years of failure have also been forty years of error. There is authority-including emphatic support from the courts-for the proposition that addicts were never intended to be pushed outside the regulatory framework, as Congress envisaged it in passing the act.43 They might, as reasonably, have been expected, instead, to address themselves to the medical profession for help.44 The statutory language is susceptible of differing interpretations as to its effects on medical practitioners, and this is what has led to uncertainty as to its prohibitory scope. If it be conceded that all supplying of drugs to addict-consumers-i.e., uncontrolled sales by unlicensed and unregistered persons-was to be ended, there yet remained the question whether doctors might not take care of their addict-patients by prescribing or administering as the doctors deemed necessary. Physicians, dentists, and veterinary surgeons45 who are "lawfully entitled" to dispense drugs46 must register47 and keep records,48 but they may prescribe or administer drugs without making use of the written Treasury Department order form,49 and without regard for the original-stamped-package requirement.50 And persons possessing drugs obtained pursuant to a prescription, or received directly from a registered practitioner, are excepted from the general prohibitions against transportation51 and possession.52 But difficulty arises from the fact that every one of these exemptions and exceptions is qualified with language that implies additional limitation. Thus, the prescription specified exempts the recipient only if it is "issued for legitimate medical uses. . . ."53 And the direct dispensing similarly exempted is covered only when it is "to a patient by a registered physician ... in the course of his professional practice," and where said drugs are dispensed or administered to the patient "for legitimate medical purposes. . . ."54 Similarly, the language which excuses medical practitioners from the order-form requirement covers dispensing "to a patient by a physician in the course of his professional practice only . . . "55, and makes it expressly unlawful for any person, including practitioners, to obtain drugs "for any purpose other than the use, sale, or distribution thereof by him . . ." in the legitimate practice of his profession.56 Even the exemptions which permit interstate transportation of drugs by persons who have received them on prescription or by direct dispensation from a physician specify that the prescription must have been "issued for legitimate medical uses" and the dispensation must have been "to the patient for legitimate medical purposes."57 The parallel exemption permitting possession by unregistered persons uses different phrasing: the drug must have been "prescribed in good faith."58 And the Marihuana Act contains similarly qualified exemptions for transfers by a registered medical practitioner "in the course of his professional practice only" and by a pharmacist if "made in good faith" in pursuance of a prescription.59 What did the lawmakers intend when they selected all these qualifying phrases? Who was to decide what constituted "legitimate medical purposes," set the bounds of "professional practice only," pass on the practitioner's "good faith," and determine whether he had departed from "the legitimate practice of his profession"? At the outset, the questions were not sharply put.60' The nation was absorbed in World War I, and the Treasury Department seemed content to let the new regulatory pattern emerge slowly. But in 1919, the lull ended, and a veritable blitz commenced. A special Treasury Department committee stunned the nation with a report that one million perso ns had become addicted to "dope," mostly young people, many "under the age of 20."61 And in 1920, the Narcotics Division of the Treasury Department was merged into the lusty new Prohibition Unit, then launching its roistering crusade against liquor-drinkers and bootleggers.62 The first point of attack was necessarily the medical profession. While reputable doctors accepted the addict's affliction as one within the purview of the Hippocratic Oath, there could be no wholesale roundups and headline-making arrest records-nor, incidentally, could the sinister "dope ring" of later chronicles make its appearance.63 If the addict remained a "patient" he could bargain for help, albeit on rigorous terms, with those who understood his problem and could aid him most-and no sacrifice in the cause of therapy could have approached the cruel enslavement that was to follow later, when his only bargain was with the illicit peddler, on the latter's terms. Medical men were aware of this responsibility, and, by and large, they were responsive to it, until the early twenties. Then, they were driven into full retreat by a series of Supreme Court decisions that still record one of the most astonishing occurrences in our legal history. The High Court was the victim of a trick. On the same day on which the constitutionality of the Harrison Act was affirmed,64 the Court handed down the first of the "doctor" cases, Webb v. United States, in which the Government had posed the following certified question:65 If a practicing and registered physician issues an order for morphine to an habitual user thereof, the order not being issued by him in the course of professional treatment in the attempted cure of the habit, but being issued for the purpose of providing the user with morphine sufficient to keep him comfortable by maintaining his customary use, is such order a physician's prescription under exception (b) of s2? 66 And the justices responded:67 [T]o call such order for the use of morphine a physician's prescription would be so plain a perversion of meaning that no discussion of the subject is required. Two extraneous facts doubtless influenced the Court's response: at this time (1919), public hysteria about the "dope menace" was thoroughly whipped up; and the case was one of flagrant abuse (Dr. Webb had sold prescriptions by the thousands, indiscriminately to any applicant, for fifty cents apiece).68 The second case, Jin Fuey Moy v. United States69 also arose out of an outrageous set of facts: the doctor had written prescriptions for morphine by the gram, for all comers, at one dollar per gram. The Court sustained his conviction, holding:70 Manifestly the phrases "to a patient" and "in the course of his professional practice only" are intended to confine the immunity of a registered physician, in dispensing the narcotic drugs mentioned in the act, strictly within the appropriate bounds of a physician's professional practice, and not to extend it to include a sale to a dealer or a distribution intended to cater to the appetite or satisfy the craving of one addicted to the use of the drug. Next came the case that contained the joker, United States v. Behrman, decided March 27, 1922.71 Here, too, the abuse was flagrant. Dr. Behrman had given a known addict, at one time and for use as the addict saw fit, prescriptions for 150 grains of heroin, 360 grams of morphine, and 210 grams of cocaine. But the indictment was drawn so as to omit any accusation of bad faith; it charged, in effect, that this treatment was for the purpose of curing the addict,72 and, thus, its validity depended on a holding that prescribing drugs for an addict was a crime, regardless of the physician's intent in the matter. The District Court sustained a demurrer, and the Government invoked its right to appeal directly to the Supreme Court.73 A majority of the justices, no doubt moved by the flagrant facts, which they set forth fully in the opinion,74 ruled that the indictment was good. Three dissented tersely: 75 It seems to me wrong to construe the statute as creating a crime in this way without a word of warning. Of course the facts alleged suggest an indictment in a different form, but the Government preferred to trust to a strained interpretation of the law rather than to the finding of a jury upon the facts. I think that the judgment should be affirmed. The dissenters, besides Holmes, who wrote for them, were justices Brandeis and McReynolds. Armed with what came to be known as the Behrman indictment, the Narcotics Division launched a reign of terror. Doctors were bullied and threatened, and those who were adamant went to prison.76 Any prescribing for an addict, unless he had some other ailment that called for narcotization, was likely to mean trouble with the Treasury agents. The addict-patient vanished; the addict-criminal emerged in his place. Instead of policing a small domain of petty stamp-tax chisellers, the Narcotics Division expanded its activities until it was swelling our prison population with thousands of felony convictions each year.77 Many of those who were caught had been respected members of their communities until the T-men packed them off.78 In short order, however, the Behrman ruling found a challenger. Dr. Charles 0. Linder, after a lifetime of honorable practice in Spokane, Washington, was induced by one of the Division's odious addict-stool-pigeons to write a prescription for four small tablets of cocaine and morphine.79 Several agents thereupon descended on his office, conducted a rowdy search, and dragged him off to jail.80 He was indicted in the Behrman form, convicted, sentenced, and lost on his appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals.81 But he carried the fight on to the Supreme Court, where he was completely vindicated.82 The opinion, unanimous this time and written by justice McReynolds, set forth what is still the controlling interpretation of the Harrison Act :83 The enactment under consideration levies a tax, upheld by this court, upon every person who imports, manufactures, produces, compounds, sells, deals in, dispenses or gives away opium or coca leaves or derivatives therefrom, and may regulate medical practice in the States only so far as reasonably appropriate for or merely incidental to its enforcement. It says nothing of "addicts" and does not undertake to prescribe methods for their medical treatment. They are diseased and proper subjects for such treatment, and we cannot possibly conclude that a physician acted improperly or unwisely or for other than medical purpose solely because he has dispensed to one of them, in the ordinary course and in good faith, four small tablets of morphine or cocaine for relief of conditions incident to addiction. The Court warned that its opinions in the Webb and Jin Fuey Moy cases should be narrowly limited to the facts there involved, and then it dismissed the Behrman case (and blasted at the Behrman indictment) in the following strong disclaimer :84 This opinion related to definitely alleged facts and must be so understood. . . . The opinion cannot be accepted as authority for holding that a physician who acts bona fide and according to fair medical standards, may never give an addict moderate amounts of drugs for self-administration in order to relieve conditions incident to addiction. Enforcement of the tax demands no such drastic rule, and if the Act had such scope it would certainly encounter grave constitutional difficulties. But by 1925, it was too late to change the pattern. The trick had worked. The doctors had withdrawn, and they never permitted the addict to reapproach them.85 The peddler had taken over, and his profits soared as enforcement efforts reduced his competition and drove his customers ever deeper into the underworld, where they were easy prey. It is significant that the present-day regulation of the Narcotics Bureau advising doctors of their rights in dealing with addicts blithely ignores what the Supreme Court said in the Linder case86 and still paraphrases the discredited language of Webb v. United States:87 An order purporting to be a prescription issued to an addict or habitual user of narcotics, not in the course of professional treatment but for the purpose of providing the user with narcotics sufficient to keep him comfortable by maintaining his customary use, is not a prescription within the meaning or intent of the Act; and the person filling such an order, as well as the person issuing it, may be charged with violation of the law. Simultaneously with its campaign to cut the addict off from recourse to medical help, the Narcotics Division launched an attack on him along another line as well. He was portrayed as a moral degenerate, a criminal type, and the public was told that he could only be dealt with by being isolated from all normal contacts with society; if left at large, one of his main preoccupations was allegedly contriving ways to induce others to share his misery by becoming addicted themselves. In short, he should be caught and locked up.88 A formal action taken by the American Medical Association in 1924 is still cited as official concurrence by the doctors in this viewpoint.89 But it is more likely that here, also, the zeal of the enforcement authorities led them to overstretch the limits of reasonable interpretation. At its annual meeting in 1919, the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association had passed two resolutions, one calling on the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to organize a nation-wide conference "with a view to controlling the traffic in and harmful consumption of narcotic drugs," and the other creating a special four-man committee to study the entire situation and report back to the House.90 The latter committee reported the following year, recommending, inter alia, that heroin be totally eliminated from all medical preparations and use, and that "the ambulatory treatment of drug addiction . . . be emphatically condemned."91 The committee was referring to the prescribing of drugs to addicts for self-administration at the addict's convenience and out of the doctor's supervisory control. The word "ambulatory," however, also implied being physically at liberty instead of hospitalized or imprisoned. The text adopted by the 1924 resolution was:92 Your committee desires to place on record its firm conviction that any method of treatment for narcotic drug addiction, whether private, institutional, official or governmental, which permits the addicted person to dose himself with the habit-forming narcotic drugs placed in his hands for self-administration, is an unsatisfactory treatment of addiction, begets deception, extends the abuse of habit-forming narcotic drugs, and causes an increase in crime. Therefore your committee recommends that the American Medical Association urge both federal and state governments to exert their full powers and authority to put an end to all manner of such so-called ambulatory methods of treatment of narcotic drug addiction, whether practiced by the private physician or by the so-called "narcotic clinic" or dispensary. In the opinion of your committee, the only proper and scientific method of treating narcotic drug addiction is under such conditions of control of both the addict and the drug, that any administration of a habit-forming narcotic drug must be by, or under the direct personal authority of the physician, with no chance of any distribution of the drug of addiction to others, or opportunity for the same person to procure any of the drug from any source other than from the physician directly responsible for the addict's treatment. The doctors, thus, were saying that the administering and dispensing of drugs ought to be strictly controlled by themselves. The authorities, however, twisted this to mean that addicts undergoing treatment ought to be strictly controlled by the authorities-i.e, incarcerated.93 The reference to "narcotic clinic" in the last quotation requires explanation. Between 1912 and 1923, a substantial number of medical men and public health officials tried to counter the assaults being made on narcotic addicts by the establishment of private or public-sponsored narcotics dispensaries. These varied widely in the details of their operation and the quality of their programs, but their aim was to provide a controlled supply for addicts who suddenly found themselves cut off by the new federal statute and the Treasury Department's vigorous enforcement campaign. In some instances, the clinic personnel tried to rehabilitate applicants and effect cures; but the main emphasis was on meeting the immediate needs of addicted persons who would otherwise be driven into the developing illicit market or end up in prison. Such institutions were opened in some forty cities throughout the country, 94 and some, at least, were acknowledged by contemporary observers to be successful,95 though it is charged that some quickly degenerated into simple peddling operations, distributing drugs haphazardly to all applicants. The clinic experiments, good and bad alike, came to an abrupt end in the early 1920's, however, when Treasury agents closed on them, threatening federal prosecutions.96 Many details of these experiments and their history are now obscured. Treasury spokesmen, echoed by United States Public Health Service officers, have missed no opportunity to attack the clinic concept as impracticable, immoral, and downright subversive.97 Since 1923, there has been no attempt to revive any public facility for the treatment of addicts on an out-patient basis. The federal hospitals at Lexington, Kentucky, and Fort Worth, Texas, authorized in 1929,98 are admirable centers for withdrawal and rehabilitation of federal-prisoner addicts and those who submit voluntarily for treatment; but both are dedicated to the principal of absolute isolation as a sine qua non of therapy?99 In the early thirties, a doctor in Seattle opened a private clinic to furnish narcotic drugs to addicts. He observed the crucial distinction between direct administration to each patient, and prescribing or dispensing in quantity so that the drugs might be overindulged or resold; he administered directly only. But he promptly attracted the attention of the Narcotics Bureau. He was first indicted in May 1934 and was acquitted after a full jury trial.100 Thereafter, he continued his operations under the hostile surveillance of Narcotics Bureau agents, who made a second case against him, resulting in another indictment, in November 1935. This time, he was convicted, sentenced to seven years, and fined $10,000. Subsequently, pending his appeal, which resulted in affirmance,101 he gave bond and sought to continue his clinic operation. The Narcotics Bureau countered,102 however, by ordering his wholesale suppliers to refrain from selling narcotic drugs to him. He brought an action in the District of Columbia courts, to enjoin the Commissioner from thus interfering with his activities-and it was only when he lost the first round of this collateral skirmish, being denied a temporary restraining order,103 that he gave up the fight. He went to the McNeil Island Penitentiary in June 1937, and in 1938, the State of Washington Department of Licenses revoked his medical license .104 Year after year, the pattern remained the same. Addicts and small-fry peddlers 105 were arrested by the thousands;106 the traffic prospered; and the overlords at the top of the illicit operations never got near "the stuff" and were rarely brought to account.107 This fantastic black market, where smuggled drugs brought thousands of times their intrinsic value, remained an exclusively American phenomenon, playing its part, along with bootlegging, in the rise of gangsters and the emergence of bigtime organized crime. In 1951, the Kefauver Committee turned its attention to narcotics and marijuana, 108 causing a flurry of public apprehension. It was alleged that drug addiction was on the increase and had captured school children and teen-agers.109 In this atmosphere, the Narcotics Bureau announced that stiffer penalties, harsher repression, and more law-enforcement efforts were the answer.110 Dozens of "tough" measures were introduced in the Eighty-first Congress by lawmakers vying for public approbation as saviors in the face of this exaggerated menace.111 The bill which eventually became law was the offering of Congressman Hale Boggs, of Louisiana. Its chief feature was mandatory minimum sentences, applicable to all narcotic drug offenses, and graduated as follows: first conviction, two to five years; second, five to ten years; and third, ten to twenty years.112 For second and subsequent offenses, the judge was prohibited from suspending the sentence or granting probation. This measure was opposed by the American Bar Association,113 and it has reportedly been ignored or defied by sentencing judges in a significant number of cases where the defendants before them seemed to merit less than the prescribed minimum punishment. But the popularity of vindictive attitudes towards anyone related to the "dope menace" evoked responses in state legislatures as well, and a number of jurisdictions have emerged with "little Boggs Acts."114 In the same wave of popular interest, new legislation was enacted in a number of jurisdictions providing for the compulsory treatment-in confinement-of addicts.115 Addiction has been made a crime per se in several states.116 In nearly every instance, however, the result has been merely to provide another statutory weapon for use against addicts, permitting apprehension and imprisonment without the formality of making a case on possession or sale.117 In February, 1955, the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association passed a resolution urging Congress "to undertake a re-examination of the Harrison Act, its amendments, and related enforcement and treatment policies and problems.118 On March 18, 1955, the Senate adopted S. Res. 67, which authorized a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee to make such a study. This subcommittee, under the chairmanship of Senator Daniel, toured the country, hearing hundreds of witnesses and amassing thousands of pages of testimony.119 Enforcement officers attorneys general, states' attorneys, sheriffs, and police chiefs in some 2500 communities-were also canvassed by questionnaire. The subcommittee's conclusions were submitted in a nine-page document120 that reached two general conclusions: federal laws should be tougher, and the Narcotics Bureau should have larger appropriations. Among its specific findings were pronouncements that the current addict-population of the United States is "more . . . than all of the other western nations combined"; that thirteen per cent of this group are under twenty-one years of age; that the illicit traffic has trebled since World War II; 121 that drug addiction is responsible for fifty percent of all crime in urban areas and twenty-five per cent of the nation's total reported crimes; 122 and that drug addiction is "contagious"-i.e., addicts spread addiction "with cancerous rapidity." The subcommittee also avowed that "subversion through drug addiction is an established aim of Communist China," and that the United States is, thus, "one of the principal targets" of a communist plot "to demoralize susceptible individuals in our services and in the general population."123 On the question of treatment for addicted persons, the subcommittee concluded that such persons should first be "removed from society"; and if treatment fails, they must be permanently consigned to "a quarantine type of confinement or isolation ."124 In a second report,125 the subcommittee blasted what it termed "the so-called clinic plan for legal distribution of narcotics [to drug addicts],126 opining that the plan "is totally unworkable, completely contrary to accepted medical practice and theory, and would aggravate rather than solve the problem. . . ." Its arguments included the familiar assault on "ambulatory" treatment, coupled with the assertion that no treatment could be effective without "hospitalization or other confinement"; that physical administration of drugs would be impracticable because of the need for frequent injections, plus the mounting "tolerance" factor; that clinics would merely supplement, not supplant, the illicit market as a source for their addict clientele; and that legalizing any distributions would create new addicts, because addiction "has the contagious qualities of a social disease." Any such plan would also be "in absolute contradiction" to our national obligations under various treaty commitments, would conflict with state laws, and would, in sum, be "a complete turnabout in our present policies and programs." Finally, to clinch the argument, the subcommittee affirmed its belief "that it would be absolutely immoral to give in to drug addiction and help perpetuate such pitiful conditions for the individual human being."127 The subcommittee offered a number of legislative proposals, which became law without significant opposition in the last days of the 84th Congress.128 Without further distinguishing addicts from traffickers, the new laws raise the assessable fine for all narcotics offenses to $20,000 129 and increase the mandatory minimum sentences to two, five, and ten years for successive offenses in the possession, prescription, and registration categories,"130 while first sale, transfer, and smuggling offenses carry a minimum sentence of five years, which increases to ten years for all succeeding offenses."131 Special penalties apply to any sale or transfer by an adult132... to a person under eighteen: for any such offense, the minimum sentence is ten years; and if the drug is heroin, the court may impose life imprisonment or the jury may direct the imposition of a sentence of death.133 The new law directly outlaws heroin 134 and contains a miscellany of special provisions to make the police work of the Narcotics Bureau easier. Customs and Narcotics Bureau agents may carry arms and may make arrests without a warrant on belief that a drug-law offense has been committed.135 Search warrants issued in connection with alleged narcotics offenses may be served at night under certain circumstances.136 In narcotics cases, unlike other federal prosecutions, the Government may appeal from pretrial orders suppressing evidence, 137 while testimony may be compelled from witnesses, despite the plea of self-incrimination, by means of a special immunity grant.138 Drug users and drug-law offenders are required, fatuously perhaps, to disclose themselves, register, and obtain a special certificate upon entering or departing from the United States139 (in peril of a penalty provision that is anything but fatuous, however: one thousand dollar fine and minimum one-year sentence). Drug addiction and drug-law violation are made grounds for deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act.140 And to add the ultimate compounding of penalties, the new law creates a separate category of offenses (minimum two-year sentence and five thousand dollar fine) based on the use of communication facilities "in committing or in causing or facilitating the commission of, or in attempting to commit" any drug-law offense; communication facilities include "any and all public and private instrumentalities used or useful in the transmission of writings, signs, signals, pictures, and sounds of all kinds by mail, telephone, wire, radio, or other means of communication"; and "each separate use of a communication facility shall be a separate offense. . . .141 The Daniel subcommittee epitomized its philosophy, and synthesized the prevailing attitude of today's lawmakers and law enforcers, in the concluding paragraph of its report on the care of addicts:...142 It should be noted that these recommendations for treatment and rehabilitation are not intended as a substitute for criminal confinement and punishment of those addicts who are convicted of law violations. They should pay their debt to society the same as non-addicts, and proper law enforcement and confinement in such instances will do much towards minimizing the narcotics traffic and addiction in the United States. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
