500.C1197/850
The Secretary of State to the Secretary General of the League of Nations (Avenol)2
The Secretary of State of the United States of America refers to circular letter No. C. L. 36. 1935. XI., dated March 7, 1935, from the Secretary General of the League of Nations,3 in regard to the resolution passed by the Opium Advisory Committee on November 20, 1934, which recommends to governments that no new licenses for the manufacture of narcotic drugs be issued if the factories at present existing in their respective countries have a manufacturing capacity sufficient for the needs of their respective domestic and export markets.4
The Treasury Department, which is the Department charged with the duty of registering manufacturers of narcotic drugs in the United States, is of the opinion that, as a general policy, no new factories for extracting alkaloids directly from raw opium or coca leaves and producing the salts of such alkaloids should be permitted to be established in the United States. Nevertheless, that Department reserves the right to permit one or more such factories to be established should special circumstances in its opinion warrant such action, subject, of course, to the paramount principle that the total quantities permitted to be manufactured in any one year shall not exceed the estimates for that year established under the Narcotics Limitation Convention of 1931.5
- Transmitted to the Minister in Switzerland in Department’s instruction No. 2937, April 16 (not printed).↩
- Not printed.↩
- See League of Nations, Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs, Minutes of the 19th Session, November 15–28, 1934, p. 35.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1931, vol. i, p. 675.↩