The Secretary of State to the President.
Washington, August 7, 1913.
The President:
I have the honor to submit herewith a report prepared by Mr. Hamilton Wright on behalf of the American delegates to the Second International Opium Conference, which sat at The Hague from the 1st to the 9th of July last.
The report summarizes the steps leading up to the call of this conference by the Netherlands Government and reviews the questions submitted to the conference and the conclusions arrived at by the delegates thereto, representing the following countries: Germany, United States, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Spain, France, Great Britain, Haiti, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and Siam.
The report also covers the period intervening between the adjournment of the First Opium Conference, which sat at The Hague from December 1, 1911, to January 23, 1912. By this conference an international convention was adopted which emphasizes the obligation to adopt legislation strictly to confine the dealing in opium and allied narcotics to medical channels. This convention has been signed with the greatest good will by all but 10 nations of the world, and an agreement to ratify it has been made by nearly all of the signatory powers. Among the signatory powers are all the Latin-American States and a great majority of the States of Europe; and an agreement to proceed to the deposit of ratifications has been entered into by all but three of the signatories. The report states that there is every reason to believe that by the end of the year, through the action of the recent conference, all the nations of the world will have signed the convention, and that it will become universally effective a short time thereafter.
As a party to the international convention, the Government of the United States is pledged to the enactment of legislation to carry it into effect. A bill drawn for that purpose has recently passed the House of Representatives without a dissenting vote and it is hoped that it may be enacted into law during the present session of the Congress.