Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  | 
February,  1911.  ) 
A  nti-Na rcotic  L cgislatio n . 
67 
Bulletins  of  the  Hygienic  Laboratory,  U.  S.  Public  Health  and  Marine-Hos- 
pital Service,  No.  33,  47. 
^  Blum.  Miinchener  Medisinische  W ochenschrift,  1898,  No.  9-1 1;  Zcit.  Physi- 
old.  Cheni.,  vol.  26,  p.  160,  1899. 
Zeit.  Physiol.  Chem.,  vol.  22,  p.  1,  1896. 
'^Journal  of  American  Chemical  Society,  vol.  31,  p.  710,  1909;  Ibc'd,  vol.  32, 
p.  692,  1910. 
Zeit.  Physiol.  Chem.,  23,  p.  265,  27,  p.  32;  Virchow's  Archiv,  169,  p.  444, 
1902;  Hoffmeister's  Beitrage,  11,  p.  545,  1902;  Wiener  klinische  Rund- 
schhau,  1905,  p.  649. 
^Cunningham:  Journal  of  Experimental  Medicine,  vol.  iii,  p.  225,  1898. 
ANTI-NARCOTIC  LEGISLATION.- 
By  Samuel  M.  Clement,  Jr. 
I  consider  it  a  great  honor  to  be  invited  by  the  Philadelphia  Col- 
lege of  Pharmacy  to  discuss  with  your  professors  and  your  students 
the  interesting  question  of  the  Law  of  Narcotics.  I  have  been  in- 
tensely interested  with  this  subject  for  the  past  year,  and  I  realize 
how  important  the  subject  is,  not  only  to  pharmacists  and  physicians, 
but  to  the  entire  community ;  for,  in  the  time  that  I  have  been  work- 
ing with  the  State  Pharmaceutical  ]>oard  and  my  friend  Dr. 
Christopher  Koch,  I  have  been  amazed  at  the  evils  to  the  community 
resulting  from  the  misuse  of  narcotics. 
It  will  be  interesting  to  note  that  the  first  legislation  enacted  on 
the  subject  of  narcotics  in  the  United  States  was  in  the  Tarifif  Bill 
of  July  14,  1832,  when  opium  was  permitted  to  be  imported  to  this 
country  without  duty  ;  and  each  succeeding  tariif  law  permitted  the 
free  entry  of  opium,  until  the  Tariff  Act  of  August  30,  1842,  was 
passed,  and  for  the  first  time  a  duty  varying  from  75  cents  to  $2.50 
per  pound  was  placed  on  opium.  This  continued  until  October  i, 
I890,  when  the  Tariff  Law  again  placed  opium  on  the  free  list, 
where  it  remained  until  July  24,  1897,  when  the  Tariff  Law  of  that 
year  placed  a  duty  of  $t.oo  a  pound  on  opium.  It  was  in  1850  thai 
it  was  discovered  that  the  Chinese  of  the  I^acific  coast  were  smoking 
large  quantities  of  opium,  and  a  few  years  after  that  the  lower 
classes  of  the  whites  and  negroes  took  to  smoking  opium  ;  so  that 
*  Address  delivered  before  the  members  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of 
Pharmacy,  Friday,  November  tt,  19TO. 
