Harrison Narcotics Tax Act (1914)
The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 was a significant piece of legislation in the United States that regulated the importation and distribution of narcotic drugs, including opium and cocaine. The act required individuals involved in these activities to register with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and pay an annual tax. Additionally, it mandated strict record-keeping for drug transfers, with specific forms and documentation needed to ensure compliance. While the law allowed exceptions for medical professionals who could distribute drugs to patients in their presence, these practitioners were still subject to stringent record-keeping requirements.
The act emerged from a complex backdrop of international and domestic influences, including rising concerns over opium addiction, public health advocacy, and social issues related to race and class. It was seen as both a public health measure and a reflection of societal attitudes towards drug use, particularly in relation to marginalized communities. The law faced immediate legal challenges regarding its constitutionality, with debates centering on whether it was a valid revenue measure or a means of suppressing drug use. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality, marking a pivotal moment in the regulation of narcotic substances in America. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act laid the groundwork for future drug policies and reflects ongoing discussions about drug use, public health, and regulatory approaches.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Harrison Narcotics Tax Act (1914)
Date: Enacted on December 14, 1914
The Law: Federal legislation that required producers, importers, and distributors of opium and cocaine products to register and pay special taxes.
Significance: The Harrison Narcotic Drug Act was the first federal legislation in the United States to regulate the importation and distribution of opium, cocaine, and products derived from them and to impose criminal penalties for noncompliance. It marked a radical change in public policy and the official beginning of the domestic war on drugs.
The Harrison Narcotic Drug Act (also known as the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act) of 1914 mandated that anyone importing or distributing opium or other narcotic drugs (including cocaine, which was erroneously labeled a narcotic in the act) in the United States register with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and pay a tax of $1 per year. In addition, transfers of drugs covered by the act, whether by sale, barter, exchange, or gift, could be done only by written order on forms designed by the IRS. Exceptions were made for physicians, dentists, and veterinarians, who could distribute to patients in their presence, but even they had to maintain records that were subject to government scrutiny; each such record of a drug transfer had to include the receiving person’s name and address and the amount of the drug given. The penalties for violation of the law were a fine of two thousand dollars and imprisonment of not more than five years.
A confluence of factors, both international and domestic, led to the adoption of the Harrison Act. Abroad, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States took governance of the Philippine Islands, where the Spanish government had previously supplied narcotics addicts with drugs. Also, Britain was selling Indian opium in China for silver bullion, which traders argued could better be spent on American goods; at the same time, American missionaries in China were publicizing the deleterious effects of opium consumption there. In 1912, under the auspices of the United States, the first international agreement limiting the sale of opium was signed.
At home, other issues surfaced. Among these were a growing recognition of the undesirability of opium addiction and increasing opposition to the widespread consumption of unregulated patent medicines that contained opiates and cocaine. Another issue was racism, manifested primarily against Chinese immigrants and African Americans, coupled with elitist attempts to protect lower-class morality, although addiction crossed all economic, racial, and social lines. Although lobbying both for and against the Harrison Act—by pharmacists, physicians, producers of patent medicines, and reformers—was intense, President Woodrow Wilson signed the compromise bill into law in December, 1914.
The act came under immediate attack as to its constitutionality. Opponents of the act argued that if it had truly been a revenue measure, its enactment would have been a proper exercise of the taxing power of Congress; however, they asserted, the act was really intended to suppress drugs and addiction, so it was an exercise of police power, which is within the province of the states. Courts split on the law’s intent, but in United States v. Jin Fuey Moy (1916), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the legislation.
Bibliography
“The Harrison Narcotic Act.” Virginia Law Review 6 (April, 1920): 534-540.
Musto, David F. The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Musto, David F., and Pamela Korsmeyer. The Quest for Drug Control: Politics and Federal Policy in a Period of Increasing Substance Abuse, 1963-1981. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.