New York Times March 12, 1911 UNCLE SAM IS THE WORST DRUG FIEND IN THE WORLD Hamilton Wright, United States Opium Commissioner, is 44 years old, and a native ofOhio. He was appointed to his present office July 1, 1908, and was American delegate tothe International Opium Commission, which met at Shanghai in February, 1909. He began hiseducation in Boston, and was graduated M.D.C.M., with first-class honors, from McGillUniversity, in Montreal, in 1895. He served there for a year in hospital, then spent twoyears in China and Japan, studying scientific, social, and economic conditions. In 1897 hereceived the British Medical Association Studentship for researches on the nervous system,and, elsewhere in Europe, won high academic honors. In 1900-1903 he served upon a specialmission in Further India, studying tropical diseases, especially beri-beri, malaria, andplague. After other official medical service of the highest importance in India hereturned to the United states in 1903. Since the adjournment of the International OpiumCommission he has been attached to the Department of State, preparing for the comingconference at The Hague this Spring. He is author of many scientific articles andmonographs on the nervous system, social and economic problems in the tropics, and on thehistory, sociology and economics of the opium problem. By Edward Marshall "Of all the nations of the world," Dr. Hamilton Wright, who knows more of thesubject than any other living man, told me the other day. "the United States consumesmost habit-forming drugs per capita. Opium, the most pernicious drug known to humanity, issurrounded, in this country, with far fewer safeguards than any other nation in Europefences it with. China now guards it with much greater care than we do; Japan preserves herpeople from it far more intelligently than we do ours, who can buy it, in almost any form,in every tenth one of our drug stores. Our physicians use it recklessly in remedies andthus become responsible for making numberless 'dope fiends,' and in uncounted nostrumsoffered everywhere for sale it figures, in habit-forming quantities without restriction.Even in Russia medical practitioners, recognizing the great Sydenham's declaration thatwithout opium their profession would go limping, have guarded it as one might guard apearl, for use and against abuse. A physician there would no more think of giving it atordinary time of physical or mental stress than he would think of taking it himselfbecause he had a trifling pain or felt a little worry. Here physicians often are addictedto the habit, and they continually prescribe opium for insufficient causes or without anyreal excuse. The contrast between European and American professional ethics in this matteris deplorable, and the dark side of the picture is America's. A proportion of our doctorsand a much larger ratio of our druggists regard their liberty to prescribe and sell as alicense to advise and furnish to its victims the narcotic curse on demand." Dr. Wright is earnest, energetic, nervous and magnetic; throughout official circles heis spoken of, in Washington, as "Opium Doctor" Wright, and is proud of it. Hehas done more, perhaps, than any other man to fight the opium habit in this country, andthe fruit of his enthusiasm has not been confined to the United States. He is an importantleader in a worldwide crusade, and almost from world's end to world's end his fame isknown. Everywhere he is regarded as the one man living who, through his individual effortalong the line which he has chosen, has accomplished most. On the 30th of May, this year,he will be upon the firing line again in still another battle with the evil as one, and,probably, the chief of the American delegation to the Opium conference at the Hague,where, with associates appointed by twelve of the great powers, he will, it is to bedevoutly hoped, give to the world a real solution of this mightiest of its narcoticsproblems. Few people realize how serious the opium habit has become in the United States. Askmost men where most opium is used and they will answer, "China," without theslightest hesitation; but the fact is definitely otherwise. Our per capita consumptionequals and probably exceeds that of the dragon empire, and there the habit is beingintelligently killed, while here it is increasing with so great a speed that we may wellstand startled at the contemplation of its spread. The Story of the Opium Fight. "The history of the opium fight forms a queer illustration of our Nationalblindness to our own faults," Dr. Wright explained to me, "and emphasizes ourNational tendency to see with amazing clarity, the sins of others, while remaining blindto our own viciousness. The habit has this Nation in its grip to an astonishing extent.Our prisons and our hospitals are full of victims of it, it has robbed ten thousandbusiness men of moral sense and made them beasts who prey upon their fellows, unidentifiedit has become one of the most fertile causes of unhappiness and sin in the United States,if not the cause which can be charged with more of both than any other." "When Champ Clark, before the Ways and Means committee, asked me what the effectof restrictive legislation which I favored would be, I said that it would be to drive outof the business not less than 10 percent of all the retail druggists in the country,because, in the United States, at least one druggist out of every ten exists by means ofprofits from the sale of habit-forming drugs, of which, of course, opium and itsderivatives are most important. Most people will, with Mr. Clark, be much surprised toread this, but it is less than truth. If opium were rightly safeguarded in the UnitedStates far more than a full tenth of all druggists would immediately be forced frombusiness, and many, many a complacent doctor, willing to prescribe the drug they demand ofany patient's hurtful craving for it, would find his practice, now, really, a mere detailof one of the world's most vicious habits, dwindling quickly into nothing. "As a result of the illicit traffic in these drugs the pharmaceutical professionin this country has lost much of its dignity, and this is fully justified by facts; themedical profession must include within its ranks a multitude of arrant knaves, the greaternumber of them, possibly, themselves victims of the drug and robbed by it of all sense oftheir responsibility to their patients and society. "Our people through these facts, and carelessness, ignorance, and want offoresight by the Federal Government, and, too, think, as the result of mental and physicalexhaustion following the civil war, have become the greatest drug fiends in the world, notexcluding the Chinese. We are literally the world's opium eaters." "And no efforts--" Opposition to Efforts at Reform. "Oh, yes, very definite efforts have been made looking toward reform, and theywill win, but the opposition has been strenuous. A restrictive bill proposed this Winter,provided for the regulation by the Federal Government of every person-- importer,manufacturer, druggist, or physician-- who in any manner handles habit-forming drugs, andthat all sales and transactions in those drugs must be recorded and such recorded keptquite open to inspection by the accredited authorities of States and municipalitiescharged with the enforcement of the anti-narcotic laws. Against this bill was brought anopposition representing aggregated capital of quite $100,000,000, and with an annualturnover of at least five times that sum." "And is there, in no other country, so strong an opposition to restrictivemeasures?" "No other country in the world, today, is either faced by such an opium problem,or finds its efforts to dissolve the one it has so viciously opposed. China is involved tothe extent of annual duties amounting to £6,000,000, or roughly $30,000,000; India'sfinancial interests do not amount to more than $50,000,000 annually, counting tariff andinternal revenue, and counting her whole Bengal opium monopoly, her Chinese traffic andher excise income from the sale of opium in India. There has been talk, lots of it, inthis country, in criticism of the British attitude toward opium, but we might, with muchmore profit, talk in criticism of our own, for, in comparison with ours the sins ofEngland are small matters. Theirs are open, ours are hidden. That is why we hear so muchabout Great Britain's and so little of our own; and the hidden vice is ever more dangerousthan unconcealed wrongdoing." "Has no other country than America a similar problem among druggists andphysicians?" We Stand Alone In Our In difference. "And how about our southern border?" "I know less about the Mexican frontier. We are sure that large amounts of opiumprepared for smoking are imported into Mexico, and that most of it is not consumed there.The natural inference is that it comes across our boundary-- is smuggled --but, for onereason or another, we lack detailed knowledge. "That matter will adjust itself, however. Larger phases of the subject havedemanded and still are demanding our attention. There are the Philippines, for instance. "When we found that we had captured, with the Philippines, an opium problem, weset to work to solve it as intelligently as we could, and, at first, it was though[t] bestto gradually abolish the drug's use there. The islands needed revenue and needed itacutely, so it was deemed by some expedient, if not entirely wise, to countenancerestricted sale, beneath a heavy tax, and use the income for necessary, worthy purposes,such as for instance, schools. But further study proved the trade to be a threat toeverything we held of value in the islands, so Mr. Taft, who then was Governor, sent outhis experts to investigate through the whole East and come back with full information andsuggestions. This commission also advised gradual abolition of the traffic, not itsinstantaneous prohibition, and, therefore, for a time this was again considered, but itsoon became apparent that the measures they suggested were too mild to suit the sentimentof the home people, who protested until Congress passed an act of prohibition at therequest of Mr. Roosevelt and of Mr. Root. The Islands in the Grip of Opium. "The vice had gained strong foothold in the islands. Unchecked, it surely wouldhave utterly destroyed their people. It had been Mr. Taft's recognition of this when hewas Governor of the islands which started the whole movement, and Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Taft,Mr. Root, and Mr. Knox all deserve enormous credit for effective work. "Well, this situation on the islands, with the study it gave rise to, led ustoward some appreciation of our own domestic faults and earnest efforts to correct them,so, after all, even the worst enemies of the Pacific islands must acknowledge that theyhave been beneficial in their general effect on us. Without the work which theirnecessities demanded it is doubtful if we would to-day be so near to general appreciationof the hold which drugs have taken on us as a nation. "Our action in the islands, too, was destined to prove beneficial, not to us,alone, but to the world at large, for the traffic in the islands was not only very rapidlysuppressed, but the attention of the great community of nations was attracted by ourdiscoveries and action, to the problem and, later, to the possibilities of itssolution." "Did the islands take the prohibition without protest?" "No prohibition of a vice is ever taken without protest," Mr. Wright replied."Our Government met many difficulties, but by solving them it decreased crime uponthe islands, encouraged thrift and doubtless raised the general intelligence." His general hint of difficulties was confirmed to me, the same day he made it, by anex-officer of Filipino scouts who talked with me about the matter. His story is worthinterpolation here. Lee Clotworthy, his name is, and his fame is very great. He hastraveled far and well and met many men of many kinds, including cowmen in Montana, wherehe has a ranch and where he learned the cattle business. At present he is counted one ofthis country's ablest military writers, experts, critics, but one day at Manila only hiskeen knowledge of the cow kind counted. Clever Smugglers of Opium. The Secret Service men were sure that day that on a cattle boat from Hong-kong opiumwas being smuggled, but they could not learn just how. Elaborate search was made withoutresults, but not without convincing the officials that they could be wrong in theirsurmise. Clotworthy happened to be near, and he was called in consultation. He proceededto the dock and watched the cattle as they came down through the chute from off the ship.His practiced eye saw something wrong with one cow's horn, and he had her separated fromthe herd. Then he studied that queer horn. Investigation showed that it had been removed,and then, by clever fingers, fitted with an inner thread and screwed in place again afterit had been filled with raw opium. And in the herd upon the boat it soon developed thatthere were a lot of opium-bearing cows. In that manner, it was discovered, tremendousquantities of the drug had been smuggled in. But to go back to Dr. Wright. "The almost instantaneously beneficial effects of our repressive legislation inthe Philippines," he continued, "attracted the attention of the ChineseGovernment. The leading Chinese statesmen were delighted by what they thought our friendlyact in the suppression of vice in territory neighboring them, and Tong Shao Ye, with YuanShi Ki, men of great breadth of mind and influence, decided that the time had come forChina, also, to take action. For two centuries the vice had held her spellbound.Accordingly the Emperor abolished all interior production of the poppy and ordered theprohibition of opium smoking in all parts of the empire by a gradual process extendingover ten years. His course has been surprisingly effective. The Calling of the Conference. "Then it was that Mr. Roosevelt, acting through Mr. Root, invited all the powershaving possessions in the East to come together in a conference looking to the fullsuppression of the traffic in that portion of the world. That was before we realized thevast importance of our great home problem-- the mighty problem which we hope during theimpending meeting at The Hague to find some measure to control. "The powers gladly acquiesced in the idea of the first great conference. France,Russia, Portugal, Holland, Great Britain, and Japan sent delegates. They were nearly alldirectly interested in the trade, and had watched with interest our Philippineexperiments. France had a large colony in Indo-China, in which a great part of her revenuewas drawn from opium, of which the Government had a monopoly of importation, manufacture,and sale; Holland drew much of her revenue in Sumatra and Java from a similar source;Japan, which had an effective prohibitory law in Japan proper, still derived a large partof her Formosan revenues from the opium trade; China from the internal production of opiumand the importation of the drug from India, had £6,000,000, or about $30,000,000,annually to consider; Russia gained no revenue from the trade, and in 1881 had made itcontraband; Portugal's colony on Macao coast subsisted almost wholly on its opium revenue;in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany the problem had been practically solved or neverhad existed; Persia had a problem; Turkey, which had one of great importance was invited,but could not accept. "The conference was held and stimulated interest throughout the nations of theearth. We had become leaders in a real world movement looking to a great reform and hadjust reason to be proud of this; but we had gone to Shanghai fresh from our achievementsin the islands with a great feeling that we were a righteous crowd licensed to feelsuperior. "A little study showed us the grave folly of our position, for the matter of ourown consumption of the drug arose and was, to some extent, investigated. The resultsappalled our delegates. "It has been said that at the Shanghai conference little was accomplished. That isnot true in any sense, but if nothing more had been done by it than the awakening ofinterest in our own great problem it still would have remained one of the most useful ofworld-meetings. The coming conference is its direct outgrowth, and that is something isn'tit? Much real good has already been achieved. Great Britain is co-operating with us in themighty movement for control of the vast peril, and has now declared her firm intention ofabolishing gradually her Indian opium traffic and the revenues derived from it. She has,indeed, begun upon the work, and this is of enormous moment as an indication of herearnestness, for the financial problem which the situation offered her was one of the mostdifficult which any nation ever has been called upon to solve. She recognizes, though,that the opium traffic, while it is not exactly a parallel to the slave traffic, is, afterall, analogous to it, and she is arranging to destroy the one as she destroyed the other.The edict in China abolishing the traffic and the habit in ten years is a direct outgrowthof the conference and our studies in the Philippines, and the benefit that nation hasderived already is tremendous. Our own avoidance of the creation of a problem in thePhilippines similar to England's in India is a subject for congratulation. "And also as an outgrowth of this conference has come the other movement which isvastly more important than the one which brought about the conference-- the movementtoward the cleansing of our own household. You see, the whole world had regarded with ashudder China's flat prostration underneath the curse of the drug habit, and our shudderswere, perhaps, most vigorous of all. Of all those interested in reforming her we showed, Ithink, the most acute and busy signs. The Shanghai conference, in 1909, was reallydesigned particularly for study of the dreadful things the Chinese had been doing tothemselves with opium. Uncovered Our Relation to the Traffic. "The results of the investigation were not quite what were expected. Theyuncovered our relations to the traffic. You see, we had suggested the whole thing,primarily with the idea of guarding the weak morals of the Chinaman against his will,perhaps, and at the expense of his own pocket, but it soon developed that we wereimporting into the United States, and legally importing, in our selfish greed to fill ourown fat purses, undreamed of quantities of the same drug which we believed the Chinamanshould cease to use. "Thus, as an outgrowth of the conference there was begun a movement which hasprobably been even more important than the conference itself in its results. Starting outto learn the dangers of the foreign opium traffic, as we learned that dangers also lie inthe home trade, and suggested general domestic investigation by the powers. This wasgenerally agreed to, and the study of the morphine habit and the vices allied to it. Thatthis would show us as the world's worst sinners few people, if any, suspected, but thishas proved to be the case. "Of all the nations of the world, America consumes most opium, in one form oranother. Surprised by these facts as we are and as the nations of the world must be, wenow understand our grave delinquency and realize that in some way the evil must bespeedily corrected. We are the greediest drug takers in the universe, and have begun tosuffer from it, as, of course, was quite inevitable. "We use more smoking opium per annum than six great European nations put together,nor is this detail of our great consumption of the drug a detail of our Chinese problem,if nowadays we have a Chinese problem. The Chinese may have brought the habit with them toour shores, and many of the Chinese here undoubtedly use opium, but its consumption hasgrown far beyond our wildest estimate of the capacity of our comparatively small Chinesepopulation. At the coming conference the report of the United States will of sheernecessity be of the nature of a humiliating confession. Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany,Holland, and Italy have, all put together, a vastly smaller opium consumption than that ofthe United States, although their total population is 155,000,000 against our 90,000,000. Our Vast Consumption. "Every year we manage to consume 500,000 pounds of the drug, while they, incombination use less than 40,000 pounds. Nor are these startling figures the moststartling which we must present before that conference and consider carefully ourselves.Our consumption of this greatest curse, which humanity has ever known since humanity beganis growing constantly, despite the passage of new laws and the continual efforts of thescientists and moralists to teach its dangers. Since 1860 the population of this countryhas grown 133 per cent., while the amazing fact is plainly on the records that our opiumconsumption has increased 351 per cent." "What has been done to check this in the past?" "Our Congress," Mr. Wright replied, "from the beginning of ourGovernment , legalized the importation into the United States of smoking opium by theimposition on it of various import duties, ranging from $6 on the pound to twice as much.Thus, you will observe, we recognized it as an evil promptly and quite as promptly,arranged not to prohibit it but to make a profit out of it. Not quite high-minded,possibly, but precisely what we did and what we have from time to time criticised othernations for. "And the drug gained in favor with a thoughtless people, through theircarelessness and venality of those who served them, to a degree which now has come to beappalling. Not only are we now the greatest of the world's drug takers, and been forced tomake acknowledgement of it, but we must now admit, in the forthcoming conference, that ourconsumption of raw opium is growing twice as fast to-day as grows our population. The drughabit has spread throughout America until it threatens us with very serious disaster. Spreaders of the Vicious Habit. "A dozen mediums have helped to spread it, of which the conscienceless or ignorantphysician, the law-defying retail druggist, and the manufacturers of nostrums founded onnarcotics have been chief. The opium and morphine habits have become a National curse, andin some way they must certainly be checked, if we wish to maintain our high place amongthe nations of the world and any elevated standard of intelligence and morality amongourselves. "That, at the conference, we must confess our viciousness, we all regret, but mostacutely still we hope that from that conference we shall bring ideas which help us indestruction of the evil. the final movements will quite surely come, I think, throughNational legislation. Almost all State Legislatures have passed laws dealing with thesubject in one way or another-- some bad, some good-- but notwithstanding these theimporters and manufacturers of the drug have sold it where they would, to whosoever wishedto buy. They have been conscienceless and greedy and almost wholly unrestrained. TheFederal Government must take hold now, and doubtless will, after the coming conference hasadded to the aggregate of knowledge of the subject. Until the situation is made pressingby the scorn of nations as it is sure to be, after the reports are in, it is notreasonable to look for competent legislation. Mr. Knox and Mr. Taft have shown muchinterest, and for two years have pressed Congress for wise laws, but little has been done.A powerful lobby has worked constantly against us, and, besides, the situation is notclearly understood, even at the Capitol. The Federal Government will, undoubtedly,however, eventually have laws at its disposal to control the importation, manufacture, andinter-state traffic in all habit-making drugs, and then good work will be quite possible. "We have made ourselves a bit amusing by the blithe way in which we called aconference to study others' sins, only to discover through it that we were ourselves thegreatest sinners; but we have made good . We started in the conference with the idea ofguarding, possibly, the morals of our neighbors at the expense of their pocketbooks andcomfort, while our own it seems were more in need of conservation than the worst oftheirs, but we have not deserted the great movement. We were importing in great quantitiesand consuming recklessly a form of opium which could not but debauch the community. Prompt Action May Save Us. "But the minute this was realized Mr. Root urged Congress to pass an act beforethe meeting of the commission excluding from the Nation all but medicinal opium, and thiswas done in February, 1909. This saved our faces and had a beneficial influence upon thework of the commission. It showed the powers that we meant business. As a result of thedeliberations of the conference nine fundamental resolutions were unanimously passedcondemnatory of the traffic. This of itself was a step forward. Condemnation of the drughad in the past been frequent, but this one came officially from all the nations whichcould act to best advantage, and the way was thus arrived at for the United States topropose a further conference to conventionalize the Shanghai resolutions and thecorollaries derived therefrom. "We made the proposition in september, 1909. It was at once accepted, and theDutch Government invited us to make The Hague our meeting place. We are promised that allGovernments who will be represented there will heartily co-operate with us in efforts tostamp out this worldwide evil, and Great Britain has gone to the greater length ofproposing that we deal not only with these drugs, but with all others that are now or maybecome a menace, suggesting that these be made at least the subjects of investigation. New Conference Most Powerful. "It has been stated that the Shanghai Conference did not accomplish what had beenexpected of it. It should be clearly understood that it was not a conference with fullpower, but an international commission along the lines of international commissions at TheHague, rather to study and report than to frame legislation. The conference, which is nowa sequence, will be composed of delegates with full power to sign, ad referendum, anagreement to bring production and sale of opium and other habit-forming drugs undercontrol." "It is a great step forward in the march of civilization?" "One is apt to think one's own work is most important, but when it is rememberedthat opium is charged in history with at least one bloody war, that Chinese thinkers alladmit that it held that mighty nation in real thraldom for two centuries, that it stillholds large populations, elsewhere, in inertia, that, here in the United States, it hasgained a terrifying foothold which it has been advancing with appalling speed until itthreatens to become a drug-invasion great enough to hamper our triumphant march ofprogress, one must, it seems to me, find the question quite as great as any that thepowers have, in the past, considered jointly. If the conference does not disband before ithas accomplished all the work it has to do, then will its sessions greatly help towardremoving from the shoulders of humanity one of the greatest burdens which have ever, byunwisdom, greed and wickedness, been fastened on mankind. "And opium is not the only habit-forming drug we are called upon to fight. I amnot far wrong in stating that we have the largest per capita consumption of narcotics andanodynes of any people in the world. Take the question of cocaine , for instance. It is agenerally known fact that during the last twenty years cocaine has been diverted from itsoriginal use by the surgeon as a local anesthetic to pander to the supposed needs of largenumbers of our population. It is estimated, after a wide consultation, that 15,000 or20,000 ounces of this drug are sufficient to satisfy the demands of surgery in the UnitedStates. To-day there are manufactured in the United States at least 150,000 ounces of thedrug, the larger part of which is put to improper uses. "It is the unanimous opinion of every State and municipal organization having todo with the enforcement of State and municipal pharmacy laws that the misuse of cocaine isdirect incentive to crime; that it is perhaps of all factors a singular one in augmentingthe criminal ranks. The illicit use of the drug is most difficult to cope with, and thehabitual use of it temporarily raises the power of a criminal to a point where inresisting arrest there is no hesitation to murder. "It is really more appalling in its effect than any other habit-forming drug inuse in the United States. In the South the use of cocaine among the lower order of workingnegroes is quite common. It is current knowledge throughout the South that on many publicworks, levee and railroad construction,and in other working camps where large numbers ofnegroes congregate, cocaine is peddled pretty openly. In all of our large cities the drugis compounded with low grades of spirit, which make a maddening compound. Inquiries haveshown that contractors of labor in the South under the impression that cocaine stimulatesthe negro laborers to a greater output of work, wink at the distribution of the drug tothem. there is no doubt that this drug, perhaps more than any other, is used by thoseconcerned in the white slave traffic to corrupt young girls, and that when the habit ofusing the drug has been established, it is but a short time before such girls fall to theranks of prostitution. "To illustrate the insidious spread of the cocaine habit, you should know that anever increasing number of our sailors and soldiers are falling into the use of it. It wasfound recently that some of the Legation guards at Peking were cocaine fiends, and theChinese Government found it necessary to ask the treaty powers to permit her to prohibitthe importation of cocaine except for medicinal purposes. India is also threatened withthe vice. But the United States is pre-eminently the country in which there is an abuse ofcocaine. |
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