The Narcotics Bureau and the Harrison Act: Jailing the Healers and the Sick
![handle is hein.journals/ylr62 and id is 754 raw text is: THE NARCOTICS BUREAU AND THE HARRISON ACT:
JAILING THE HEALERS AND THE SICK
RUFUS 6. KINGt
[This issue of the JOURNAL contains two studies of
the narcotics problem. A Comment, beginning on
page 751, presents a general survey of narcotics
regulation. Mr. King's Article focuses on the inter-
pretation and enforcement of the Harrison Act, and
the resulting impact upon addicts and physicians.]
AT last there are faint stirrings to suggest that this nation's policies towards
its narcotic drug traffic may soon be exposed to a full critical re-examination
and review.' Nearly forty years have gone by since Congress passed the
Harrison Act,2 intended partly to carry out a treaty obligation,8 but mainly
to aid the states in combatting a local police problem which had gotten some-
what out of hand.4 In other areas of law enforcement, when Congress has
thrown federal power into the balance, these local problems have usually
diminished or disappeared.5 In the case of narcotics control, however, the in-
dications are all quite to the contrary.
It must be conceded that there are large gaps in what we know about nar-
cotics addiction and the illicit traffic. The Comment elsewhere in the JOURNALO
presents a dispassionate collection of information and authorities. Yet there
is simply not much to go by. When the federal authorities took over, we
entered a forty-year eclipse; for years on end there has been nothing but the
official line for those who wished to inquire into the subject. But enough
information is available to convince this writer, along with a handful of other
' Special Counsel, Subcommittee of House Committee on the Judiciary to Investigate
the Department of Justice; Special Counsel, Investigations Subcommittee of Senate Inter-
state Commerce Committee.
1. See note 70 infra. See also SEN. RE'. No. 725, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. (1951) ; Hearings
before Special Committee to Investigate Organizced Crbne in Interstate Conmerce, 82d
Cong., 1st Sess. pt. 14 (1951); GoLDsTEIN, NARcoTIcs, A REPORT BY THE AaroRNnv GE N-
ERAL TO THE IXGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NFW YORK (Legis. Doe. No. 27, 1952).
2. 38 STAT. 785 (1914), 26 U.S.C. § 2550 (1946).
3. The United States adhered to the Hague Opium Convention on January 23, 1912
(38 ;STAT. 1912 (1912)) ; this obliged adherents to control the manufacture, sale, use, and
transfer of morphine, cocaine and their respective salts.
4. See, H.R. REP. No. 23, 63d Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1913).
5. See, e.g., 31 STAT. 188 (1900), 18 U.S.C. § 43 (1946) (poaching); 41 STAT. 32,t
(1919), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2312-13 (1946) (transportation of stolen vehicles) ; 47 STAT, 326
(1932), 18 U.S.C. § 1201 (1946) (kidnapping).
6. Comment, Narcotics Regulation, 62 YALE L.J. 751 (1953).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ylr62&div=49&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Narcotics Bureau and the Harrison Act: Jailing the Healers and the Sick
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