893.114 Narcotics/2531
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of
State
No. 3830
Tokyo, April 14, 1939.
[Received May
2.]
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of the Department’s instruction No. 1661 of February 16,
1939, and enclosures,21 relating to the situation
in China with respect to the traffic in narcotics and directing the
Embassy, after consultation with the British Embassy, to present to
the Japanese Foreign Office an aide-mémoire
substantially in the form of the draft transmitted with the
Department’s instruction under acknowledgment.
Inquiry was made of the British Embassy whether instructions had been
received from the British Foreign Office to take action along the
lines proposed in the Department’s instruction. As the Department’s
instruction was received on March 11th, and the British Embassy
notified us on April 10th that instructions had been received from
the British Foreign Office to inform us in the event of inquiry that
the matter was still under investigation by the British Government,
it was decided to carry out the Department’s instruction without
further delay. Accordingly the aide-mémoire,
without alteration, and its enclosure, were presented to the Foreign
Office on April 13, 1939.
The official of the Foreign Office to whom the aide-mémoire and enclosure were presented had no comment
to offer other than that the contents would be studied and a reply
made in due course.
Copies of the aide-mémoire and enclosure are
transmitted herewith. A copy with enclosure has been furnished the
British Embassy.
Respectfully yours,
[Enclosure]
The American
Embassy to the Japanese Foreign
Office
Aide-Mémoire
The Government of the United States appreciates the efforts of
the Japanese authorities and of the Japanese companies operating
ships
[Page 433]
in trans-Pacific
services in connection with the suppression of the illicit
traffic in narcotic drugs between Japan and the United
States.
In the parts of China now under Japanese military control,
however, according to reports submitted by American officials,
Japanese in authority are not taking effective measures to
cooperate in the suppression of the abuse of narcotic drugs and
illicit traffic therein.
The situation existing in the Japanese-controlled areas in China,
as described in the above-mentioned reports received from
American officials, is indicated in an enclosure to this aide-mémoire entitled “The Narcotics
Situation in the Japanese-Controlled Areas in China”.22
The Japanese Government shares with the American Government and
with other governments the well-recognized obligations under the
International Drug Conventions to control the production and
distribution of raw opium, to render effective the limitation of
manufacture of narcotic drugs to the world’s legitimate
requirements for medical and scientific purposes, to use its
efforts to control or to cause to be controlled all those who
manufacture, import, sell, distribute and export narcotic drugs,
and to cooperate in other ways provided for in those
Conventions. The actions in reference to narcotic drugs of the
regimes which have been established in those areas of China
controlled by Japanese military forces cannot be regarded as
limiting the manufacture or controlling the distribution of
narcotic drugs. In the light of the situation existing in those
areas of China, the Japanese Government has an inescapable
responsibility for the importation of opium into those areas,
the shipment of opium from one part of those areas to other
parts, the manufacture of opium derivatives in those areas, the
distribution within those areas of those derivatives, and the
shipping out of opium and its derivatives from the occupied
areas of China to third countries.
In urging upon the Japanese Government the importance of there
being exercised by the Japanese Government the restraining
influence which it is in a position to bring to bear upon its
nationals in the occupied areas of China and upon the regimes
which have been established therein, the Government of the
United States desires to point out that the situation existing
in the occupied areas is one of deep concern to it because
- 1.
- The evidence in the possession of this Government
indicates that the heroin found in the illicit traffic
in the United States has since 1935 come in large
measure from the Japanese Concession in Tientsin.
- 2.
- Practically all of the smoking opium found in the
illicit traffic in the United States comes from China
and is a blend of Chinese and Iranian opiums. Part of it
is prepared in or near Shanghai, part in South China and
a little in North China. This type of smoking opium has
practically no market in China and is put up solely for
the illicit
[Page 434]
traffic in America. Recent large seizures in the
continental United States, at Honolulu, and at Manila
point to a substantial increase in the illicit shipment
of smoking opium from the Far East to the United States,
the amounts of such seized during the last six months of
1938 having been approximately five-sixths of the total
amount seized during the year.
