Harrison Narcotics Tax Act

{{Short description|U.S. federal law regulating and taxing narcotics}} {{Use American English|date=June 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2024}} {{Infobox U.S. legislation | shorttitle = Harrison Narcotics Tax Act | othershorttitles = Opium and Coca Leaves Trade Restrictions Act | longtitle = An Act to Provide for the Registration Of, With Collectors of Internal Revenue, and to Impose a Special Tax Upon All Persons Who Produce, Import, Manufacture, Compound, Deal In, Dispense, Sell, Distribute, Or Give Away Opium Or Coca Leaves, Their Salts, Derivatives, Or Preparations, and for Other Purposes | colloquialacronym = HNTA | nickname = Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act | enacted by = 63rd | effective date = March 1, 1915 | public law url = | cite public law = {{USPL|63|223}} | cite statutes at large = {{usstat|38|785}} | acts amended = | acts repealed = | title amended =  | sections created =  | sections amended = | leghisturl = | introducedin = House | introducedbill = {{USBill|63|H.R.|6282}} | introducedby = Francis Burton Harrison (D-NY) | introduceddate = | committees = | passedbody1 = | passeddate1 = | passedvote1 = | passedbody2 = | passedas2 =  | passeddate2 = | passedvote2 = | conferencedate = | passedbody3 = | passeddate3 = | passedvote3 = | agreedbody3 =  | agreeddate3 =  | agreedvote3 =  | agreedbody4 =  | agreeddate4 =  | agreedvote4 =  | passedbody4 = | passeddate4 = | passedvote4 = | signedpresident = Woodrow Wilson | signeddate = December 17, 1914 | unsignedpresident =  | unsigneddate =  | vetoedpresident =  | vetoeddate =  | overriddenbody1 =  | overriddendate1 =  | overriddenvote1 =  | overriddenbody2 =  | overriddendate2 =  | overriddenvote2 =  | amendments = | SCOTUS cases = {{Ubl |''United States v. Doremus'', {{ussc|249|86|1919}} |''Webb v. United States'', {{ussc|249|96|1919}} |''Linder v. United States'', {{ussc|268|5|1925}} |''Blockburger v. United States'', {{ussc|284|299|1932}} }} }} {{USdruglaws}} The '''Harrison Narcotics Tax Act''' (Ch. 1, {{USStat|38|785}}) was a United States federal law that regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products. The act was proposed by Representative Francis Burton Harrison of New York and was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 17, 1914.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heroin/etc/history.html|title=Opium Throughout History|publisher=PBS Frontline|access-date=2010-04-14}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1910/harrisonact.htm|title=Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, 1914|publisher=Drug Reform Coordination Network|access-date=2013-11-18}}</ref>

"An Act To provide for the registration of, with collectors of internal revenue, and to impose a special tax on all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give away opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes." In ''Webb v. United States'', the act was interpreted to prohibit prescribing maintenance doses for narcotics unless it was intended to cure the patient's addiction.<ref>Gray, Elizabeth Kelly (2023). ''Habit Forming: Drug Addiction in America''. New York: Oxford University Press. pg 222.</ref>

The Harrison anti-narcotic legislation consisted of three U.S. House bills imposing restrictions on the availability and consumption of the psychoactive drug opium. House Resolution (H.R.) 1966 and {{USBill|63|H.R.|1967}} passed conjointly with {{USBill|63|H.R.|6282}} (the Opium and Coca Leaves Trade Restrictions Act).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://legisworks.org/congress/63/publaw-46.pdf|title=Opium Importation Amendment - P.L. 63-46|work=38 Stat. 275|series={{USBill|63|H.R.|1966}}|publisher=Legis★Works|access-date=2015-06-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151103102557/http://legisworks.org/congress/63/publaw-46.pdf|archive-date=2015-11-03|url-status=usurped}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://legisworks.org/congress/63/publaw-47.pdf|title=Opium Manufacture Restrictions - P.L. 63-47|work=38 Stat. 277|series={{USBill|63|H.R.|1967}}|publisher=Legis★Works|access-date=2015-06-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151020174953/http://legisworks.org/congress/63/publaw-47.pdf|archive-date=2015-10-20|url-status=usurped}}</ref>

Although technically illegal for purposes of distribution and use, the distribution, sale and use of cocaine was still legal for registered companies and individuals.

==Background==

===International=== Following the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War, the Philippines saw a proliferation of opium use. A cholera outbreak in 1902 further strengthened this tendency due to the astringent properties of opium.<ref>{{Citation|last=Escohotado|first=Antonio|title=Historia General de las Drogas|trans-title=General History of Drugs|edition=Alliance|year=1998|pages=610–611}}</ref>

Charles Henry Brent was an American Episcopal bishop who served as Missionary Bishop of the Philippines beginning in 1901. He convened a Commission of Inquiry, known as the Brent Commission, for the purpose of examining alternatives to a licensing system for opium addicts. Although Governor William Taft supported this policy, Brent opposed it "on moral grounds".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.kcba.org/druglaw/pdf/report_hc.pdf|title=King County Bar Association Drug Policy Project, ''Drugs and the Drug Laws: Historical and Cultural Contexts''|date=January 19, 2005|pages=16–17|access-date=December 20, 2021|archive-date=January 10, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170110032921/https://www.kcba.org/druglaw/pdf/report_hc.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Commission recommended that narcotics should be subject to international control. The recommendations of the Brent Commission were endorsed by the United States Department of State and in 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt called for an international conference, the International Opium Commission, which was held in Shanghai in February 1909. A second conference was held at The Hague in May 1911, and out of it came the first international drug control treaty, the First International Opium Convention of 1912.

===Domestic=== By the late nineteenth century, per capita rates of narcotic abuse in the United States were estimated to be higher than those recorded in the early 1990s.{{sfn|Courtwright|1992|p=2}} Opium usage peaked in 1896 and then began to decline gradually. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., then dean Harvard Medical school, blamed the prevalence of opiate addiction on ignorance. As awareness of the addictiveness of morphine and patent medicines grew public opinion in the 1890s was in favor of state laws restricting morphine.{{sfn|Musto|1999|p=4}} Demand gradually declined thereafter in response to mounting public concern, local and state regulations, and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which required labeling of patent medicines that contained opiates, cocaine, alcohol, cannabis and other intoxicants.<ref name="Street">{{cite journal|first=John Phillips|last=Street|year=1917|title=The Patent Medicine Situation|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=7|issue=12|pages=1037–42|doi=10.2105/ajph.7.12.1037|pmc=1362112|pmid=18009787}}</ref> By 1914, forty-six states had regulations on cocaine and twenty-nine states had laws against opium, morphine, and heroin.<ref name="meet">{{cite book|date=September 1902|title=Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eEpLAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22ommittee+on+the+Acquirement+of+the+Drug+Habit%22&pg=PA567}} p. 572 (Google Print)</ref>

====Opium==== In the 1800s opiates were mostly unregulated drugs. Morphine use had spread rapidly during and after the Civil war. The consumption of household remedies and marketed syrups containing morphine was commonplace and mostly associated with the upper and middle class of society.{{sfn|Duster|1970|p=9}} Many women (not all) who were prescribed and dispensed legal opiates by physicians and pharmacist for "female problems" (probably pain at menstruation) became addicted.<ref name="kand">{{cite web|url=http://www.nida.nih.gov/PDF/DARHW/033-052_Kandall.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010612144609/http://www.nida.nih.gov/PDF/DARHW/033-052_Kandall.pdf|archive-date=2001-06-12|author=Stephen R. Kandall|title=Women and Addiction in the United States—1850 to 1920}}</ref> It's likely many who became addicted initially did not know what the syrups and concoctions contained.{{sfn|Duster|1970|p=6-7}}{{sfn|Courtwright|1992|p=2}}

Although morphine syrups were easily available, opium smoking was already banned by many municipalities.{{sfn|Courtwright|1992|p=2}} There was more hostility to opium smoking than laudanum and other widely available tonics because of anti-Chinese sentiments and accusations that proprietors lured young white girls to opium dens.{{sfn|Gray|2023|p=148}} Chinese immigrants were blamed for importing the opium-smoking habit to the U.S. The 1903 blue-ribbon citizens' panel, the Committee on the Acquirement of the Drug Habit, concluded: "If the Chinaman cannot get along without his dope we can get along without him."<ref name=aclu>{{cite web |title=Caught in the Net: The Impact of Drug Policies on Women and Families |website=ACLU |url=https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/images/asset_upload_file431_23513.pdf}}</ref>

Heroin use became widespread among low-income immigrants in the early 20th century.{{sfn|Courtwright|1992|p=5}} In the 1890s, the Sears & Roebuck catalogue started offering a syringe and a small amount of cocaine or heroin for $1.50.<ref name="Johnston 2013">{{cite web|last=Johnston|first=Ann Dowsett|title='Drink' and 'Her Best-Kept Secret'|website=The New York Times|date=15 November 2013|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/books/review/drink-and-her-best-kept-secret.html|access-date=9 August 2023|quote=In 1897, the Sears, Roebuck catalog offered a kit with a syringe, two needles, two vials of heroin and a handy carrying case for $1.50.}}</ref><ref name="The Atlantic 2019">{{cite web|title=Sears Once Sold Heroin|website=The Atlantic|date=30 January 2019|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/sears-roebuck-bayer-heroin/580441/|access-date=9 August 2023|quote=For $1.50, Americans around the turn of the century could place an order through a Sears, Roebuck catalog and receive a syringe, two needles, and two vials of Bayer Heroin, all in a handsome carrying case.}}</ref>

====Cocaine==== Cocaine was first isolated in 1855. Within a few decades public opinion had associated cocaine use with crime sprees committed by black men.{{sfn|Courtwright|1992|p=5}} There were many hysterical news reports in the early 20th-century about cocaine-fueled rampages using hyperbole like "cocaine-crazed negro" and others exaggerating the addictiveness of cocaine saying it quickly reduced users to "another entry in Satan's ledger".{{sfn|Gray|2023|p=205}}{{sfn|Kennedy|1985|p=93-7}} In 1900, the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' published an editorial stating, "Negroes in the South are reported as being addicted to a new form of vice – that of 'cocaine sniffing' or the 'coke habit.{{'"}} A well-known article published in ''The New York Times'' on February 8, 1914 claimed cocaine use caused blacks to rape white women.{{sfn|Fisher|2024|p=267}} This article and similar articles of the era, however, do not provide examples of such crimes. The people who made such allegations used racism to manipulate public opinion, but their allegations were unfounded.{{sfn|Gray|2023|p=207}} The article titled ''Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are a New Southern Menace'' is remembered for its portrayal of "the cocaine-crazed negro" who was invulnerable to bullets. The use of the term "fiends" by Dr. Edward Huntington Williams, the author of the article, is understood to connote the demonization of the non-white drug user.{{sfn|Fisher|2024|p=267}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Williams, MD |first=Edward Huntington |date=Feb 8, 1914 |title=Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are a New Southern Menace; Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to 'Sniffing' Since Deprived of Whisky by Prohibition |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/08/archives/negro-cocaine-fiends-are-a-new-southern-menace-murder-and-insanity.html |access-date=Dec 14, 2023 |website=The New York Times}}</ref>

According to historian David F. Musto public opinion about cocaine turned negative as newspapers and even ''Good Housekeeping'' scapegoated the drug to explain rising crime in the South:{{sfn|Musto|1999|p=305}}

<blockquote>Thus the problem of cocaine proceeded from an association with Negroes in about 1900, when a massive repression and disenfranchisement were under way in the South, to a convenient explanation for crime waves, and eventually Northerners used it as an argument against Southern fear of infringement of states's rights.</blockquote>

Despite the extreme racialization of the issue that took place in the buildup to the act's passage, contemporary research in Northern cities found relatively few cocaine users compared with alcoholics and opium addicts overall and no significant concentration among blacks. Blacks did use "patent medicines" containing opiates and cocaine for pulmonary conditions. It's possible that higher rates of disease among blacks in the early 20th century may explain why blacks consumed patent medicines more than whites.<ref>Helmer, John, and Thomas Vietorisz. ''[https://libcom.org/library/2-blacks-cocaine-opium-1905-1920 Drug Use, the Labor Market and Class Conflict]''. Washington: Drug Abuse Council, 1974. Libcom.org. Web. 17 Aug. 2014.</ref>{{sfn|Gray|2023|p=204}}

==Hearings==

Theodore Roosevelt appointed Dr. Hamilton Wright as the first opium commissioner of the United States in 1908.<ref name="hamilton">{{cite news|url=http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1910/worstfiend.htm|author=Edward Marshall|title=Uncle Sam is the Worst Drug Fiend in the World|date=March 12, 1911|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=2014-01-01}}</ref> Wright testified at the hearing about the dangers alleging that drugs made blacks uncontrollable, gave them superhuman powers and caused them to rebel against white authority.{{sfn|Cockburn|St. Clair|1998|p=71}} He said cocaine was often "the direct incentive to the crime of rape of white women by Negroes".{{sfn|Gray|2023|p=206}} He also stated that "one of the most unfortunate phases of smoking opium in this country is the large number of women who have become involved and were living as common-law wives or cohabitating with Chinese in the Chinatowns of our various cities".<ref name="Cora">{{cite book|last=Wetherington|first=Cora L.|author2=Alan I Leshner|year=1999|title=Drug Addiction Research & the Health of Women|publisher=Diane publishing|isbn=0-7881-8053-3}} Wetherington states that the 1909 Shanghai Commission made this comment.</ref>

Dr. Christopher Koch of the State Pharmacy Board of Pennsylvania testified of the dangerous "cocaine-crazed" blacks in the South: "Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain".{{sfn|Musto|1999|p=305}}{{sfn|Cockburn|St. Clair|1998|p=71}}{{sfn|Kennedy|1985|p=96}}

Writing in 1953 Rufus G. King explained that the Harrison Act was "intended partly to carry out a treaty obligation, but mainly to aid the states in combating a local police problem which had gotten somewhat out of hand."{{sfn|King|1953|p=736}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Narcotics Bureau and the Harrison Act |url=https://openyls.law.yale.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/a0f9ad6f-83b6-4fb1-99c5-0127d194647e/content |page=1 |quote=at the third footnote "The United States adhered to the Hague Opium Convention..."}}</ref>

==Congressional passage== When Representative Francis Burton Harrison of New York placed HR 1966 for debate before the full House of Representatives on June 26, 1913, he began by noting that the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 failed to limit importation of opium because it regulated the maritime shipping industry, rather than the individual drug users. In Harrison's view, shipping companies could evade regulation by forging documents and smuggling opium across the Mexico–United States border, whereas individual drug users would struggle to dispute their role in smuggling networks.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |date=26 June 1913 |title=House of Representatives |url=https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1913/06/26/house-section |journal=Congressional Record |volume=50 |issue=3}}</ref>

The Congressional Record showcases that the House was unsure whether the Commerce Clause actually permitted the federal government to restrict what types of goods could be exported, but the chamber adopted an expansive view based on dicta from the 1904 antitrust case ''Northern Securities Co. v. United States''. While the House agreed that the Export Clause clearly prohibits taxing exported opium, they were divided as to whether they could outright prohibit such exports. Though the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act prohibited the importation of adulterated or misbranded food and drugs, that law was considered a product standard, whereas the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act would not allow any form of opium as imports or exports.<ref name=":0" /> Congress would not attempt another restriction on the types of goods that can be exported until the 1940 Export Control Act.<ref name="rat" />

Representative Thomas U. Sisson of Mississippi objected to restricting the market for narcotics as encroaching on state police power in violation of the Tenth Amendment. Harrison admitted that the federal authority to tax those involved in the market for narcotics under the Taxing and Spending Clause was weak because the federal government stood to earn more in import taxes without this act. Surprisingly, Sisson and Harrison were in agreement that the bill would allow physicians to continue prescribing narcotics as part of medical treatment for those with substance use disorder, yet the act's enforcement by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue frequently prosecuted such patients.<ref name="rat">{{cite book |last=Rowe |first=Thomas C. |title=Federal Narcotics Laws and the War on Drugs: Money Down a Rat Hole |publisher=Haworth Press |year=2006 |isbn=0-7890-2808-5}} p. 14-19</ref>

== Enforcement == Enforcement began in 1915.<ref>[http://enforcement.lawin.org/drug-enforcement-administration Drug Enforcement Administration | Enforcement | Encyclopedia of Law].</ref> The act appears to be mainly concerned about the marketing of opiates. However, a clause applying to doctors allowed distribution "in the course of his professional practice only." Physicians believed relieving the suffering of physical dependence was within the "professional practice" exception. King says "there is not the slightest suggestion that Congress intended to change this". He says the public hysteria surrounding contemporaneous press reports about violent "dope fiends" probably distorted the Congressional intent and turned addicts into criminals.{{sfn|King|1953|p=737-9}}

The "professional practice" clause was interpreted after 1917 to mean that a doctor could not prescribe opiates to an addict. Addicts and doctors were jailed for decades under theories adopted by the Narcotics Division that addiction could not be successfully treated in a clinical setting.{{sfn|King|1953|p=737-9}} A number of doctors were arrested and some were imprisoned.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} The medical profession quickly learned not to supply opiates to addicts. In ''United States v. Doremus'', 249 U.S. 86 (1919), the Supreme Court ruled that the Harrison Act was constitutional, and in ''Webb v. United States'', 249 U.S. 96, 99 (1919) that physicians could not prescribe narcotics solely for maintenance.<ref name="kand" />

The impact of diminished supply was obvious by mid-1915. A 1918 commission called for sterner law enforcement, while newspapers published sensational articles about addiction-related crime waves.<ref>Albert F. Nathan. "Drug Fiends Make 'Crime Wave.'" ''Los Angeles Times'' (1886–1922). Los Angeles, Calif.: Nov 30, 1919. p. II1 (2 pages)</ref> Congress responded by tightening up the Harrison Act—the importation of heroin for any purpose was banned in 1924.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wayback Machine |url=https://www.naabt.org/documents/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act_1914.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20251101102206/https://www.naabt.org/documents/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act_1914.pdf |archive-date=2025-11-01 |access-date=2026-01-24 |website=www.naabt.org}}</ref>

Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo appointed Representative Henry T. Rainey to lead a special committee to investigate the law's effects.<ref name=":1" /> In June 1919, this Rainey Committee found that criminal organizations were smuggling drugs into the country across all four of the United States' coastal and land borders.<ref>[http://adh.2.forumer.com/a/america-in-the-19th-century_post470.html The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120701161441/http://adh.2.forumer.com/a/america-in-the-19th-century_post470.html|date=2012-07-01}} Edward M. Brecher and the Editors of ''Consumer Reports'' magazine, 1972</ref> Annually, the United States consumed 470,000 pounds of opium, whereas France and Germany each purchased around 17,000 pounds of opium. While the United States' 1920 population of 106 million was far larger than France's 1921 population of 39 million and Germany's 1920 population of 62 million, per capita opium consumption was still much higher in America.<ref name=":1" /> Based on the US Department of Commerce's monthly summaries of foreign commerce, between July 1919 and January 1920, imports of opium increased to 528,635 pounds from only 74,650 pounds during the same period a year prior.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Kennedy |first=Ezra J. |date=May 1920 |title=Suppressing the Opium Traffic |url=https://archive.org/details/pharmaceuticaler53newyuoft |journal=The Pharmaceutical Era |volume=53 |issue=5 |pages=130}}</ref>

==Challenges== In the 1919 cases ''United States v. Doremus'' and ''Webb v. United States'', the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was upheld by the Supreme Court under an expansive reading of the Taxing and Spending Clause based on the earlier ''License Tax Cases'' (1866).<ref name="rat" />

The act's applicability in prosecuting doctors who prescribe narcotics to addicts was successfully challenged in ''Linder v. United States'' in 1925, as Associate Justice James Clark McReynolds ruled that the federal government has no power to regulate medical practice.<ref name="rat" />

==References== {{reflist}}

==Sources== *{{cite book|last1=Cockburn|first1=Alexander|first2=Jeffrey |last2=St. Clair|year=1998|title=Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press|publisher=Verso|isbn=1-85984-139-2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/whiteoutciadrugs00cock}} *{{cite book |last=Courtwright |first=David |title=Treating Drug Problems: Volume 2: Commissioned Papers on Historical, Institutional, and Economic Contexts of Drug Treatment. |chapter=A Century of American Narcotic Policy |year=1992 |publisher=National Academies Press (US) |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234755/}} *{{cite book|last=Duster | first = Troy | author-link = Troy Duster | title=The Legislation of Morality: Law, Drugs, and Moral Judgment|date=1970|publisher=Free Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-02-908680-3}} *{{cite book|last=Fisher|first=George|year=2024|title=Beware Euphoria|publisher=Oxford University Press}} *{{cite book |last=Gray |first=Elizabeth Kelly |title=Habit Forming: Drug Addiction in America 1776-1914 |year=2023 |publisher=Oxford University Press}} *{{cite book|last=Kennedy|first=Joseph|title=Coca Exotica: The Illustrated Story of Cocaine |year=1985 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/cocaexoticaillus00kenn/page/94/mode/2up?q=hyperbole}} *{{cite web|last=King |first=Rufus G. |year=1953 |title=The Narcotics Bureau and the Harrison Act: Jailing the Healers and the Sick |website=Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository |url=https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/13973/48_62YaleLJ736_April1953_.pdf}} *{{cite book|last=Musto|first=David F.|year=1999|edition=3rd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7VrQy2d8PxYC|title=The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-512509-6}}

==External links== * {{cite web|url=http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/law/law_fed_harrison_narcotics_act.shtml|title=The Harrison Narcotics Act (1914)|website=Psychoactives ~ Law|publisher=Erowid.org}} (full text)

Category:1914 in American law Category:History of drug control in the United States Category:United States federal controlled substances legislation Category:United States federal taxation legislation Category:Pharmaceutical regulation in the United States