The Secretary of State to Minister Calhoun.1
Washington, December 29, 1910.
Sir: You will inform the Government to which you are accredited that, in pursuance of a policy to act promptly on the findings of the International Opium Commission, the Department of State has drafted legislation for the control of the importation, manufacture, and distribution within the United States and its territories, and of exportation to foreign countries, of opium, morphine, cocaine, and other so-called habit-forming drugs, and there is transmitted herewith for your information and for the information of the minister for foreign affairs, three copies of a hearing, held May 30, 1910, before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, on the proposed legislation. A more recent hearing has been held before that committee on the proposed measures, and further hearings will be held at an early date.
It may be stated that the result so far achieved by this Government has been to secure the cooperation of American importers, manufacturers, and exporters of these drugs in favor of the principles of the proposed legislation and that it is the hope of the department, in view of the impending International Opium Congress, that the present session of Congress will favorably act on the measures. You will observe that the several bills which are now before the Congress are appended to the hearings which accompany this dispatch.
You will also inform the minister for foreign affairs that this Government has taken steps to legislate in conformity with resolutions 8 and 9 of the International Opium Commission. These resolutions are as follows:
- Resolution 8. That the International Opium Commission recommends strongly that each delegation move its Government to enter into negotiations with the Chinese Government with a view to effective and prompt measures being taken in the various foreign concessions and settlements in China for the prohibition of the trade and manufacture of such antiopium remedies as contain opium or its derivatives.
- Resolution 9. That the International Opium Commission recommends that each delegation move its Government to apply its pharmacy laws to its subjects in the consular districts, concessions, and settlements in China.
To accomplish the purposes of resolutions 8 and 9 there is now before the Congress a comprehensive pharmacy act based on the Federal pharmacy act in force in the District of Columbia. This act has been favorably reported by the Committee on Foreign [Page 328] Relations of the Senate, and it is expected that it will be acted upon by that body during the present session of Congress. For your information and for the information of the minister for foreign affairs three copies of this act (Senate 8208, 61st Cong., 3d sess., Calendar 663), are herewith transmitted.
I am, etc.,
[To be continued in Foreign Relations, 1911.]
- Same to France, Germany, Italy Japan. Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Siam and Russia.↩