The Harrison Narcotic Act

The Harrison Act began in diplomacy. International opium conferences at Shanghai in 1909 and The Hague in 1911 produced the first international opium agreement, and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan pressed Congress for a law to meet it. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Harrison Act on 17 December 1914. Federal regulation of medicine was widely thought unconstitutional, so the act was written as a revenue measure.

From 1 March 1915 anyone who produced, imported, sold, dispensed or gave away opium or coca leaves or their derivatives had to register with the collector of internal revenue and pay a special tax of $1 a year. Sales required a written order on a form issued by the Treasury. Physicians, dentists and veterinarians could dispense the drugs in the course of their professional practice only, and had to keep records. Low-dose remedies, such as those with no more than a quarter grain of morphine per ounce, were exempt. Violations carried up to five years in prison. The act did not mention addicts.

The Treasury's Bureau of Internal Revenue enforced it with 162 agents, who soon began arresting physicians and druggists for supplying addicts. The courts at first pulled the other way. In 1916 the Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 against the government in the case of Jin Fuey Moy, a Pittsburgh physician who had prescribed morphine for an addict.

That changed on 3 March 1919. In United States v. Doremus the Court, by 5 votes to 4, upheld the act under the taxing power. In Webb v. United States, decided the same day, a Memphis physician had written more than 4,000 morphine prescriptions for habitual users in eleven months, at 50 cents each, in whatever quantities they wanted. The Court held that an order meant to maintain a user's customary habit was not a prescription at all. By the end of 1921 the Treasury's Narcotic Division under Levi Nutt had closed 44 narcotics clinics, with the American Medical Association's endorsement.

In Linder v. United States (1925) the Court ruled that direct control of medical practice in the states was beyond federal power, and that a physician acting in good faith could give an addict moderate amounts to relieve conditions incident to addiction. In 1970 the Controlled Substances Act replaced the tax basis of federal drug control with Congress's power over interstate commerce.