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Shutting Out the Evil: Nativism and Narcotics Control in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

Douglas Clark Kinder
Douglas Clark Kinder
Affiliation:
Ohio University
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Extract

The general public in the United States has been inundated during the 1980s and early 1990s with information about narcotics abuse, trafficking, and control. From journalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and the medical community, the American populace ascertained that illicit drug use and trading have recently become among the nation's most intractable problems. Repeatedly, those sources reported that the consumption of cocaine, especially “crack”, had reached epidemic proportions, that drug-related violence overran the country's major cities, that youths should (according to First Lady Nancy Reagan) “just say no” to the purveyors of addictive substances, and that Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush had declared war on drugs. Americans learned too that only partial gains had been made against narcotics abuse and trafficking. Such a realization proved difficult for them to fathom following the 1988 presidential election campaign with its antidrug rhetoric, after the enactment by Congress of the Omnibus Drug Act of 1988 (which created a cabinet level “drug czar”—the director of the office of National Drug Control Policy in the Executive Office of the President), and given the stormy two-year tenure of William Bennett in that post. Of greater concern by 1991, evaluations of the nation's antinarcotics endeavors by the press, government authorities, and other informed observers indicated that the fundamental strategy of drug control was in dispute. Notwithstanding compelling arguments which insisted that the narcotics problem would continue until the domestic demand for drugs ended, federal government efforts have generally sought to eliminate foreign narcotics production and the smuggling of those substances into the United States.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 3 , Issue 4: Drug Control Policy. Essays in Historical and Comparative Perspective , October 1991 , pp. 117 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 0000

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References

Notes

1. Bruce Michael Bagley, “The New Hundred Years War?: U.S. National Security and the War on Drugs in Latin America,” Raphael Perl, “International Narcopolicy and the Role of the U.S. Congress,” and Mabry, Donald J. and Perl, Raphael, “Concluding Observations and Policy Recommendations,” in The Latin American Narcotics Trade and U. S. National Security, ed. Mabry, Donald J. (Westport, Conn., 1989), 43–58Google Scholar, 89–102, 151–61; Elaine Shannon, “A Losing Battle,” Time, 3 December 1990, 44–48. American law and custom define narcotics as opiates, cocaine, and marijuana. The legal community, restrictionists, and the general public in the United States used the words “narcotic” and “drug” synonymously until the mid-1960s, though the two are pharmacologically distinct. As have other historical studies about narcotics, this article will employ the two terms interchangeably.

2. Kinder, Douglas Clark, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior: Harry J. Anslinger and Illicit Narcotics Traffic,” Pacific Historical Review 50 (May 1981): 169–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Musto, David F., M.D., The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control, expanded ed. (New York, 1987), 1–63Google Scholar, 97–120, 135–40, 206–15, 245–48; Morgan, H. Wayne, Drugs in America: A Social History, 1800–1980 (Syracuse, 1981), 1–63Google Scholar, 88–90, 118–28; Bonnie, Richard J. and Whitebread, Charles H. II, The Marihuana Conviction: A History of Marihuana Prohibition in the United States (Charlottesville, Va., 1974), 5–28Google Scholar, 32–45, 106–11; Walker, William O. III, Drug Control in the Americas, rev. ed. (Albuquerque, 1989), 3–6Google Scholar, 9–20, 27–35, 41–45, 47–57, 62–64; Arnold H. Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 1900–1939: A Study in International Humanitarian Reform (Durham, N.C., 1969), 3–122Google Scholar, 132, 157–59, 171–77, 183–85, 200–224, 230–32, 241, 302–5; King, Rufus, The Drug Hang-Up: America's Fifty-Year Folly (New York, 1972), 69–71Google Scholar; Clark, Norman H., Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition (New York, 1976), 1–5Google Scholar, 218–23; Timberlake, James H., Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900–1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 39–99Google Scholar; Herbert L. May, “The International Control of Narcotic Drugs,” International Conciliation, no. 441 (May 1948): 301–71. Narcotics control in this country has always had an association with cultural conflict and nativism. The term “culture” wilt be used to describe the attitudes, customs, and values that comprise an ethnic group's perspective of the world. “Nativism” is both the preference for and the defense of a native culture. For a discussion of “culture,” see Walker, Drug Control in the Americas; Walker, William O. III, “Drug Control and the Issue of Culture in American Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 12 (Fall 1988): 365–82Google Scholar; Hunt, Michael H., Ideology and U. S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, 1987), 12–13Google Scholar. This article examines the control of the opium poppy, coca leaf, and cannabis plant and their derivatives and synthetic substitutes.

3. Musto, The American Disease, 135–40, 206–14, 245–48; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 9–18, 20–28, 106–11; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 1–5, 221- 22; Morgan, Drugs in America, 88–90, 118–28; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 132, 200–209; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 14–20; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91.

4. Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91; Douglas Clark Kinder and William O. Walker III, “Stable Force in a Storm: Harry J. Anslinger and United States Narcotic Foreign Policy, 1930–1962,” Journal of American History 72 (March 1986): 918–27; various clippings, articles, and typescripts in files 7, 11, and 12 in Box 1, file 1 in Box 2, and files 1 and 15 in Box 5, Harry J. Anslinger Papers, Pennsylvania Historical Collections and Labor Archives, The Pennsylvania State University, State College (hereafter cited as HJAP/PSU); U.S. Congress, House, Ways and Means Committee, Taxation of Marihuana: Hearings on HR 6385, 75th Cong., 1st sess., 27–30 April and 4 May 1937 (hereafter cited as House Marihuana Taxation Hearings); Los Angeles Examiner, 15 February 1942; Harry J. Anslinger, “Opium After the War,” The Prison World, May-June 1944, 10, 28–29; Atlanta Constitution, 19 August 1946; Anslinger, Harry J., “Narcotics and the Physician,” The West Virginia Medical Journal 38 (October 1942): 373–78Google Scholar; U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Com mittee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Pursuant to S. Res. 202, 81st Cong., 2d sess. and 82d Cong., 1st sess., 2 May 1950 to 1 September 1951, pt. 2, 8 1–89, and pt. 12, 537, 662–68 (hereafter cited as Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings); U.S. Congress, Senate, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Final Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Pursuant to S. Res. 202 (as amended by S. Res. 60 and S. Res. 129), 81st Cong., 2d sess., and 82d Cong., 1st sess., 1–6 (hereafter cited as Kefauver Committee Final Report); U.S. Congress, House, Ways and Means Committee, Report of the Ways and Means Committee on Increased Penalities for Narcotic and Marihuana Law Violations, 82d Cong., 1st sess., 1— 9 (hereafter cited as Boggs Committee Report); U.S. Congress, Senate, Judiciary Committee, Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 8, 18, 19 March and 13 May 1955, 1–14 (hereafter cited as Senate Internal Security Subcommittee Hearings); U.S. Congress, Senate, Judiciary Committee, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Improvements in the Federal Criminal Code of the Judiciary Committee, Pursuant to S. Res. 67, 84th Cong., 1st sess., 2 June to 15 December 1955, 31–33, 93–96, 275–78, 701, 1,378–95, 1,431–42, 3,115–18, 4,011 (hereafter cited as Daniel Subcommittee Hearings); U.S. Congress, Senate, Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Hearings before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, Pursuant to S. Res. 74 and 221, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 30 June and 1–3 July 1958, pt. 32, 11,219–51 (hereafter cited as McClellan “Rackets” Committee Hearings); Backrack, Stanley D., The Committee of One Million: China Lobby Politics, 1955–1971 (New York, 1976), 52–55Google Scholar, 122–23; Musto, The American Disease, 135–40, 210–15; Morgan, Drugs in America, 118–28.

5. U.S. Congress, House, Ways and Means Committee, Hearings before the Ways and Means Commute on H. R. 10,561, A Bill to Create in the Treasury Department a Bureau of Narcotics and for Other Purposes, 71st Cong., 2d sess., 7 and 8 March 1930, 1–44 (hereafter cited as House Bureau of Narcotics Hearings); U.S. Congress, House, Appropriations Committee, Hearings before the Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee in charge of the Treasury Department Appropriation Bills for 1931–63, 71st Cong., 2d sess., to 88th Cong., 2d sess, 27 November 1929 to 29 January 1962 (hereafter cited as House Treasury Department Appropriation Hearings); House Marihuana Taxation Hearings; H. J. Anslinger, with Courtney Ryley Cooper, “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth,” American Magazine 124 (July 1937): 18–19, 150–53; Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings, pt. 2, 81–89, and pt. 12, 537, 662–68; Kefauver Committee Final Report, 1–6; Boggs Committee Report, 1–9; Senate Internal Security Subcommittee Hearings, 1–14; Daniel Subcommittee Hearings, 3 1–33, 93–96, 275–78, 701, 1,378–95, 1,431–42, 3,115–18, 4,011; McCiellan “Rackets” Committee Hearings, pt. 32, 11,219–51; Backrack, The Committee of One Million, 52–55, 122–23; “Highlights: The Realm of Entertainment,” Altoona (Pennsylvania) Mirror, 10 May 1965; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 70–73; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–83; Anslinger, “Narcotics and the Physician,” 373–78; “Executive Order for Interdepartmental Narcotics Committee,” 2 November 1951, File: Legislation 82d Cong., 1st sess. (Narcotics), Box 81, George M. Elsey Papers, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri (hereafter cited as Elsey Papers); Executive Order 10302, “Interdepartmental Committee on Narcotics,” 2 November 1951, Code of Federal Regulations, Title 3—The President, 1949–1953 Compilation (Washington, D.C., 1958), 831–32; Statements by Gordon Canfield, Hale Boggs, and J. Vaughn Gary, Congressional Record-House, 82d Cong., 1st sess., 30 June, 16 July, and 20 August 1951, 7,545–46, 8,195–98, 10,385–87. Anslinger's administration of American narcotics control surpassed that of all federal officials supervising the earlier Narcotics Division (within the Prohibition Unit and Bureau), the State Department's drug limitation endeavors, and more recently established agencies such as the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Drug Enforcement Administration. A variety of factors explain the superiority of the commissioner's and his bureau's antinarcotics program. First, through national laws, presidential executive orders, and the assumption of authority, Anslinger and the FBN obtained greater legal power for drug restriction than any other federal officers and agencies. The commissioner and the narcotics bureau for more than three decades conducted a majority of the country's narcotics-control diplomacy; encouraged the institution of international police practices that aided drug-law enforcement; executed federal antidrug laws; regulated legitimate narcotics transactions; mobilized an existing popular consensus against drugs in the United States and consequently convinced senators, representatives, and presidents to enact additional harsh antinarcotics legislation; and operated a lobbying effort to promote supplemental drug-control laws at the state and local levels. Second, Anslinger and his agency produced a remarkable record of law enforcement efficiency. Despite an annual budget averaging only about $2 million and a staff averaging only about 250 agents between 1930 and 1962, the FBN sent more criminals to jail per agent than any other federal law enforcement unit, avoided major scandals, and earned a reputation of cooperating well with international, national, state, and local police. Third, the commissioner and the narcotics bureau achieved more influence over the dissemination of drug-related information than other authorities and agencies in the country. Other federal entities—even the armed forces—submitted their statistics on narcotics use, addiction, and trafficking to the FBN; the commissioner, in turn, released the country's only official figures to the press. Such an arrangement allowed him to publicize statistics (criticized by some contemporary and virtually all later public health officers and social observers for falsely minimizing the American drug problem) that indicated both the need for the FBN and its law enforcement success. Anslinger also influenced public thinking about narcotics consumption and trading by writing books and articles and by providing information to other authors. The effect of his public relations effort was to create the image that the narcotics bureau would have eradicated drug addiction and trafficking in the nation if it were not struggling against numerous well equipped, foreign “super criminals.” On these issues, see the sources above and Bruun, Kettil, Pan, Lynn, and Rexed, Ingemar, The Gentlemen's Club: International Control of Drugs and Alcohol (Chicago, 1975), 15–18Google Scholar, 20–21, 54–59, 87–88, 300–301; Bernard Barton to Dr. Winford H. Smith, 25 May 1944, Anslinger to Murray Kramer, 20 December 1944, and Anslinger to 1. V. Sollins, 19 February 1945, Medical Supplies: UNRRA-Narcotic Requirements file, Box 59, Record Group 179, Records of the Combined Production and Resources Board, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Moore, William Howard, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 1950–52 (Columbia, Mo., 1974), 115Google Scholar, 134; U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, Circular Letters, nos. 17, 75, 98, and 251, 15 August 1930, 10 March 1931, 28 April 1931, 10 November 1933, item T56.2, Box Tl 169, Printed Archives Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

6. Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91; Kinder and Walker, “Stable Force in a Storm,” 908–27; Anslinger, Harry J. and Tompkins, William F., The Traffic in Narcotics (New York, 1953)Google Scholar; Anslinger, Harry J. and Oursler, Will, The Murderers: The Shocking Story of the Narcotics Gangs (New York, 1961)Google Scholar; Anslinger, Harry J. and Gregory, J. Dennis, The Protectors (London, 1964)Google Scholar; Anslinger and Cooper, “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth,” 18–19, 150–53; Broadcast over KIRO, Seattle, 31 July 1939, file 8, Box 1, HJAP/PSU; Anslinger, “Opium After the War,” 10, 28–29; Harry J. Anslinger, “Your Part in the War on Narcotics,” The Christian Advocate, 21 April 1951, 8–9, 23, 27; Harry J. Anslinger, “The Opium of the People's Government,” in U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Soviet Total War: “Historic Mission” of Violence and Deceit (Washington, D.C, 1956), 759–63; Harry J. Anslinger, “Dope from Red China,” The Military Police Journal, February-March 1961, 2–6; Washington Herald, 27 July 1938; Kefauver, Estes, Crime in America (Garden City, N.Y., 1951), 19–22Google Scholar; Lait, Jack and Mortimer, Lee, Washington Confidential (New York, 1951), 107–17Google Scholar; Lee Mortimer, “New York Confidential,” New York Mirror, 13 May 1958; Rodney Gilbert, “Dope from Red China,” American Legion Magazine, September 1954, 16–17; Jack Anderson, “Castro Has a New Weapon,” Washington Post Magazine, 29 July 1962; Bruun, Pan, and Rexed, The Gentlemen's Club, 15–18, 20–21, 54–59, 87–88, 300–301.

7. “Harry Anslinger Dies at 83,” New York Times, 18 November 1975; “Harry Anslinger, Narcotics Chief,” Washington Post, 18 November 1975; “Harry Anslinger Ex Drug Official,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 17 November 1975; Michael Kernan, “Pioneer Narc Chief Views Drug History,” Austin (Texas) American Statesman, 31 October 1971; New York Journal American, 14 January 1964; Adolf Lande to Harry Anslinger, 23 September and 3 December 1963, file 3, Box 2, HJAP/PSU; Bruun, Pan, and Rexed, The Gentlemen's Club, 15–18, 20–21, 54–59, 87–88, 300–301; U.S. Congress, House, Appropriations Committee, Hearings before the Subcommittee in charge of Appropriations for the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary and Related Agencies for 1975, 93d Cong., 2d sess., 12 March 1974, pt. 1, 910–11; Musto, The American Disease, 238–41, 257; Mabry and Perl, “Concluding Observations and Policy Recommendations,” 151–61. The total federal government expenditure for narcotics law enforcement in fiscal year 1974 was sixty-five times larger than the FBN budget in fiscal year 1962. Musto, The American Disease, 257.

8. Bagley, “The New Hundred Years War,” 43–58; Perl, “International Narcopolicy and the Role of the U.S. Congress,” 89–102; Mabry and Perl, “Concluding Observations and Policy Recommendations,” 151–61; Shannon, “A Losing Battle,” 44–48.

9. Musto, The American Disease, 1–61; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 1–13; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 218–20; Morgan, Drugs in America, 1–63; David T. Courtwright, “Opiate Addiction as a Consequence of the Civil War,” Civil War History 25 (June 1978): 101–11. See also two works by Young, James Harvey: The Medical Messiahs: A Social History of Health Quackery in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, 1967)Google Scholar and The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in Americo Before Federal Regulation (Princeton, 1961).Google Scholar

10. Morgan, Drugs in America, 1–97; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 13–14; Musto, The American Disease, 1–61; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 1–5, 219–21; Courtwright, “Opiate Addiction as a Consequence of the Civil War,” 101–11; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 1–15, 28, 32–45; Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 39–99.

11. Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 218–23; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 5–15, 28, 32–45; Timberlake, Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 39–99; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 3–122; Musto, The American Disease, 1–61; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 13–15; Morgan, Drugs in America, 27–97.

12. Musto, The American Disease, 6–8; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 14, 32–45; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 13–14, 100–102; Morgan, Drugs in America, 27–97; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 1–5. See also Weppner, Robert S., ed., Street Ethnography: Selected Studies of Crime and Drug Use in Natural Settings (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1977)Google Scholar; Helmer, John, Drugs and Minority Oppression (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Bullington, Bruce, Heroin Use in the Barrio (Lexington, Mass., 1977)Google Scholar; Courtwright, David T., Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in America Before 1940 (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).Google Scholar

13. Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 14–15; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 220–22; Musto, The American Disease, 13–23; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 14–15; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 3–122; “Patent Medicine Crusade,” Nation 81 (9 November 1905): 376; “Patent Medicines and Poverty,” Outlook 83 (2 June 1906): 253–54; “Creating Customers for Dangerous Drugs,” Outlook 82 (7 April 1906): 778–79.

14. Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 3–19, 28–83, 87–91, 96–120; Musto, The American Disease, 3–6, 22–28, 30–37; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 219–22; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 15; King, The Drug Hang-Up, 10–11; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 9–15; May, “The International Control of Narcotic Drugs,” 308, 310, 314, 320–21.

15. Musto, The American Disease, 30–40; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 47–81; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 15–16.

16. Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 82–122; Musto, The American Disease, 37–53; May, “The International Control of Narcotic Drugs,” 321–23; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 15–16.

17. Musto, The American Disease, 40–48, 54–62; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 127–31; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 15–17; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 16.

18. Musto, The American Disease, 54–62; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 15–17; United States Statutes at Large, vol. 38, 63d Cong., 3d sess., pt. I, 785–90.

19. Musto, The American Disease, 121–26, 129–32; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 15–21; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 222–23; United States Statutes at Large, vol. 38, 63d Cong., 3d sess., pt. I, 785–90; United States Treasury Department Decisions, Decision Nos. 2,172 and 2,200, 9 March and 11 May 1915, 124–31 and 173–74.

20. Musto, The American Disease, 128–36; Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 15–21; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 222–23; United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U.S. 401 (1916); United States v. Doremus, 249 U.S. 86 (1919); Webb et al. v. United States, 249 U.S. 96 (1919); King, The Drug Hang-Up, 21; Lindesmith, Alfred R., The Addict and the Law (Bloomington, 1965), 3–6Google Scholar; Anslinger and Tompkins, The Traffic in Narcotics, 187; United States Statutes at Large, vol. 40, 65th Cong., 3d sess., pt. I, 1,130–33. Also see Daniel Subcommittee Hearings, testimony of Rufus King, 1,380–82; Lindesmith, Alfred R., “Traffic in Dope: Medical Problem,” Nation 182 (21 April 1956): 337–38Google Scholar; “The Superstition of Dope,” Literary Digest 54 (30 June 1917): 1990.

21. Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 9–10, 14–18, 20–21, 23, 27–28, 106–11; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 1–5, 221–23; Musto, The American Disease, 206–14, 245–48; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 132, 200–209; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 14–18; Morgan, Drugs in America, 88–90. See also “Is Prohibition Making Drug Fiends?” Literary Digest 69 (16 April 1921): 19–20, and Sara Graham-Mulhall, “The Evil of Drug Addiction,” New Republic 26 (18 May 1921): 357.

22. Bonnie and Whitebread, The Marihuana Conviction, 9–10, 14–18, 20–21, 23, 27–28, 106–11; Clark, Deliver Us From Evil, 1–5, 221–23; Musto, The American Disease, 206–14, 245–48; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 132, 200–209; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 14–18; Morgan, Drugs in America, 88–90; “National Menace of the Dope Traffic,” Literary Digest 76 (24 February 1923): 34–35; Nicholas and Segal, Lillian, “The Drug Evil,” New Republic 34 (7 March 1923): 41–43Google Scholar; Perry, Stuart H., “The Unarmed Invasion,” Atlantic Monthly 135 (January 1925): 70–77Google Scholar. Traditionally, addict population statistics have been unreliable. According to best estimates, the United States had about one million drug habitués in 1900 and between 200,000 and 215,000 in 1915. A special Treasury Department committee in 1919 discovered, however, that assessments of the total number of American habitués ranged from 200,000 to four million; the committee determined that the nation had one million addicts. By the 1920s, the Narcotics Division of the Internal Revenue Bureau claimed that the Harrison law was so well enforced that America had only 100,000 habitués (the figure officially recognized by the federal government at that time). Yet, the New York City health commissioner argued simultaneously that there were nearly 100,000 addicts in that area alone. Other observers outside the IRB and later the Prohibition Bureau believed that the national habitué population was large and increasing. Recent drug experts generally have asserted that this country's opiate addicts numbered about 400,000 in each year since the mid-1800s. They have claimed as well that punitive narcotics restriction forced habitués into clandestine activities. Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 13, 17, 19; Musto, The American Disease, 189–90; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 47; Lindesmith, The Addict and the Law, 99, 105–6, 111; King, The Drug Hang-Up, 18; U.S. Treasury Department, Traffic in Narcotic Drugs: Report of Special Committee of Investigation Appointed March 25, 1918, by the Secretary of the Treasury, 6–7, 20–25 (hereafter cited as Report of the Special Treasury Department Committee); New York Times, 23 May 1923. Statistics of known addicts in 1915 indicated that women outnumbered men and that a number of the habitués were middle-aged, came from the middle and upper class, and resided in the South. Figures for later years reveal an addict population dominated by lower-class men. Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 13.

23. Musto, The American Disease, 59–60, 135, 138–39, 184–90; Anslinger and Tompkins, The Traffic in Narcotics, 185–86; Lindesmith, The Addict and the Law, 141–42; Report of the Special Treasury Department Committee, 6–7, 20–25; U.S. Congress, House, Ways and Means Committee, Report No. 852 of the Ways and Means Committee: Importation and Exportation of Narcotic Drugs, 67th Cong., 2d sess., 27 March 1922, 1–11; United States Statutes at Large, 67th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 42, pt. I, 596–98; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 18–20, 29–30. To enforce the Harrison law, Congress set aside $515,000 in fiscal year 1920. Arrests for Harrison Act infractions went from 3,900 in 1920 to an average of 10,300 in 1924–26 to around 9,000 in 1927–28. Drug-law violations caused the incarceration of 2,529 of the 7,738 people in federal prisons at the end of fiscal year 1928. Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 18–20, 29–30.

24. Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 18–20, 63–67; Harry Cohen to Henry Stimson, 27 May 1929, Decimal File 800.114 N16/351, Record Group 59, State Department General Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as RG 59, [decimal file]); Memorandum of Conference by John Kenneth Caldwell, 11 April 1929, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/1; Memorandum of Second Conference by Caldwell, 13 April 1929 [dated 15 April 1929], RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/2; House Bureau of Narcotics Hearings, 1–44; Washington Herald, 7 March 1930; Memorandum of a conversation by Caldwell, 12 March 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/24; Congressional Record, 71st Cong., 2d sess., 7 March 1930, 5,186; New York Times, 9 March 1930; Musto, The American Disease, 209; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 132, 200–209.

25. House Bureau of Narcotics Hearings, 1–44; Caldwell to Cotton, 6 June 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/41; Memorandum from Caldwell to Cotton, 7 June 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/43; Cotton to George Akerson (Secretary to the President), 10 June 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/46; Cotton to Undersecretary of the Treasury Ogden L. Mills, 10 June 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/47; Akerson to Mills, 20 June 1930, Box 248, RG 56, Treasury Department General Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C; Memorandum of a conversation with Harry Anslinger by Caldwell, 17 June 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/50.

26. Musto, The American Disease, 206–14; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 63–69; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 132; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 160–91; William Dufty and Fern Marja, “The Czar Nobody Knows,” New York Post Magazine, 17 January 1958; Christian Science Monitor, 9 November 1933; New York American, 25 September 1934; Washington Herald, 11 July 1934; “The Three Horsemen,” editorial in Washington Herald, 18 July 1934; “From the East as Well as the West,” editorial in Washington Herald, 10 September 1934; Anslinger and Cooper, “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth,” 18–19, 150–53; Toledo Times, 25 November 1945; Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings, pt. 12, 662–68; Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 115–34; Anslinger and Tompkins, The Murderers, 7–10; Daniel Subcommittee Hearings, 1, 31–33, 93–96, 275–79, 701, 3,115–16, 4,011; Anslinger, “Narcotics and the Physician,” 373–78; Anslinger, “Opium After the War,” 10, 28–29; Kefauver, Crime in America, 19–22; Lait and Mortimer, Washington Confidential, 107–17; Gilbert, “Dope from Red China,” 16–17; Anderson, “Castro Has a New Weapon”; Ralph Hayes to James A. Farley, 8 January 1954, file 11, Box 2; Adolf Lande to Anslinger, 23 September 1963, file 3, Box 1; Samuel Levine to Andrew Bernard, 27 July 1962, file 5, Box 2; and various letters concerning Anslinger's influence, files 8, 12, and 13, Box 2, the last four entries in HJAP/PSU. Early narcotics restrictionists had, for example, linked drug misuse and trafficking to West Coast Chinese communities, to African-Americans in the South, to Mexican-Americans in the Southwest, and to the underworld in the nation's cities. Between 1930 and 1962 Anslinger updated such allegations for his purposes. Only three months after entering office as commissioner of narcotics, he directed FBN agents to provide him information about narcotics of foreign origin. Similarly, thirty-two months later, he ordered his officers to compile a list of drug violations associated with certain ethnic groups. At that time, he also accused Japan of using drugs to pacify Manchuria and charged ethnic gangs with smuggling Japanese narcotics into the United States. Over the next thirty years, Anslinger claimed that a Mafia conspiracy dominated domestic narcotics trafficking, that Communist China dumped opiates on the Free World, and that Fidel Castro's agents smuggled cocaine into the United States from Cuba. The commissioner employed these unsubstantiated statements to convince physicians, pharmacists, reformers, and the general public that his small agency was fighting a war against powerful traffickers. Given the supposed difficulty of that struggle, the FBN needed the support of U.S. citizens—much as military forces might desire popular support at home while they faced combat. If Anslinger portrayed foreigners as the cause of the country's intractable drug problem, then he could argue that law enforcement alone would eventually provide a solution. On Anslinger's directions to FBN agents, see U.S. Bureau of Narcotics, Circular Letters, No. 75, 10 March 1931 and No. 254, 22 November 1933, item T56.2, Box T1169, Printed Archives Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

27. Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 82–122, 171–77, 183–85, 201–24, 241–67, 334; Musto, The American Disease, 37–39, 49–53, 214–16; May, “The International Control of Narcotic Drugs,” 321–23, 329; Memorandum of a conversation by Caldwell, 17 June 1930, RG 59, 811.114 N16-Porter Bill/50; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 27–35, 47–51, 53–56, 62–67, 71–73, 176–79, 190; Kinder and Walker, “Stable Force in a Storm,” 908–27; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91; Bruun, Pan, and Rexed, The Gentlemen's Club, 15–18, 20–21, 38–45, 50–59, 87–88, 91–92, 300–301.

28. House Bureau of Narcotics Hearings, 1–44; various memoranda in RG 59, file 811.114 N16-Porter Bill; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 23–73, 130–33, 177–78; Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 146–267, 270–71, 291; Stimson to the Treasury Department for Anslinger, 1 June 1931, RG 59, 893.114 Narcotics/245; Anslinger's Report on the Third Session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, 15 July 1948, RG 59, 501.BD Narcotics/7–1548; Memorandum from John Foster Dulles to Dwight Eisenhower, 4 May 1953, folder: “85-P United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs,” Official File, Box 332, White House Central Files, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas (hereafter cited as DDEL). Between 1930 and 1941 the State Department's antidrug official held the position of assistant chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs. Taylor, American Diplomacy and the Narcotics Traffic, 270–71. George A. Morlock served as the department's principal narcotics-control officer from 1941 to 1954; his post following World War II was chief of the Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section, housed in State's Division of International Labor, Social, and Health Affairs. Harry S. Truman to Harry J. Anslinger, 7 June 1946, folder: “OF 85-Q Commissioner of Narcotics, “Official File, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri; Memorandum from John Foster Dulles to Dwight Eisenhower, 4 May 1953, and Memorandum from Charles F. Willis, Jr., to Sherman Adams, 11 May 1953 folder: “85-P United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs,” Box 332, Official File and Resumé of Harry J. Anslinger, folder: “10-L-l Commissioner of Narcotics,” Box 221, General File, DDEL.

29. John Kenneth Caldwell to Nelson Trusler Johnson, 22 September 1930 and Johnson to Caldwell, 28 January 1931, General Correspondence file, Box 13, Nelson T. Johnson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C; M. S. Myers to Johnson, 16 March 1931, RG 59, 893.114 Narcotics/209; Stimson to the Treasury Department for Anslinger, 1 June 1931, RG 59, 893.114 Narcotics/245; M. R. Nicholson, Treasury Attaché at Shanghai, to the Commissioner of Customs for Anslinger, 19 May 1932, RG 59, 893.114 Narcotics/359; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 60, 81, 86–92, 119–24, 126- 29, 130–33, 140–51, 164–69, 177–78; George A. Morlock to the American Mission, Mexico City, 9 August 1947, RG 59, 812.114 Narcotics/8–947; Victor Hoo (Hoo Chi-tsai) to Anslinger, 1 October 1945, and Anslinger to Victor Hoo, 24 January 1946, Box 2, Victor Hoo Papers, Archives of Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford, California; Anslinger's Report on the Third Session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, 15 July 1948, RG 59, 501.BD Narcotics/7–1548; “Remarks of Harry J. Anslinger, “United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, 17th session, 8 May to 1 June 1962, file8, Box 1, HJAP/PSU; “Report of the United States Delegation to the 18th session, United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs,” 29 April to 17 May 1963, International Narcotics Control file, Box 1, Harry J. Anslinger Papers, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Independence, Missouri (hereafter cited as HJAP/HSTL).

30. Walker, “Drug Control and the Issue of Culture in American Foreign Relations,” 365–82; Kinder and Walker, “Stable Force in a Storm,” 918–19, 927; Walker, Drug Control in the Americas, 86–92, 119–33, 140–51, 161–78; Brunn, Pan, and Rexed, The Gentlemen's Club, 15–18, 20–21, 38–45, 50–59, 87–88, 91–92.

31. House Treasury Department Appropriations Hearings for fiscal years 1932–42, 1944, 1948–49, 1.952–54, 1956–60, statements of Anslinger; Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings, statement of E. H. Foley, p. 4; Daniel Subcommittee Hearings, testimony of Harry Anslinger, 11–14.

32. George Gallup, “Dope Peddling to Teenagers Arouses Public Opinion; Stiff Punishment Favored by Majority,” Public Opinion News Service, July 1951, file on Senate Crime Investigation, Box 186, Subject File: Crime Probe, Truman Library; Musto, The American Disease, 214; Kefauver Committee Final Report, 1–6; Boggs Committee Report, 1–9; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91.

33. On Anslinger's antimarijuana campaign, see Anslinger and Cooper, “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth,” 18–19, 150–53; House Marihuana Taxation Hearings; various clippings, articles, and typescripts in files 7, 11, and 12, Box 1; file 1, Box 2; and files 1 and 15, Box 5, HJAP/PSU. For statements about Japan, see Washington Herald, 11 July 1934; Los Angeles Examiner, 15 February 1942; Anslinger, “Opium After the War,” 10, 28–29; Atlanta Constitution, 19 August 1946; Anslinger and Tompkins, The Traffic in Narcotics, 8–10.

34. Moore, The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime, 5–24, 114–34; Kefauver Crime Committee Hearings, pt. 2, 81–89, pt. 4-A, 420; King, The Drug Hang-Up, 120–26; Daniel Subcommittee Hearings, pt. 1, 31–33, 96; U.S. Congress, Senate, Judiciary Committee, Report of the Judiciary Committee on Illicit Narcotics Traffic, 84th Cong., 2d sess., 1956, S. report no. 1440; Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 178–88. The quote from the Daniel subcommittee appears in the Senate Judiciary Committee report cited above.

35. Kinder, “Bureaucratic Cold Warrior,” 169–91; Kinder and Walker, “Stable Force in a Storm,” 908–27; Bruun, Pan, and Rexed, The Gentlemen's Club, 15–18, 20–21, 54–59, 87–88, 300–301.

36. Bagley, “The New Hundred Years War,” 43–58; Perl, “International Narcopolicy and the Role of the U.S. Congress,” 89–102; Mabry and Perl, “Concluding Observations and Policy Recommendations,” 151–61; Shannon, “A Losing Battle,” 44–48.