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Historical Research on Drug Policy

1920

= Recommended Reading

• Federal Court Decisions 1920-1929
• Did Alcohol Prohibition Reduce Alcohol Consumption and Crime? - A list of quotes and references online that discuss whether alcohol prohibition during the 1920s reduced alcohol abuse and the related crime. Some interesting and funny reading.
• The Opium Monopoly by Ellen N. La Motte - 1920 - An account of the opium trade in Asia in the first part of the Twentieth Century
• Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure by Mark O. Thornton
• Drug Import Restriction Modified - NY Times, January 7, 1920
• Plan National Drive Against Drug Traffic, New York Times March 7, 1920,  Revenue Bureau Officials Find Alarming Increase in Victims and Prepare to Enforce Law.
• Experiences in Narcotic Drug Control in the State of New York, By Sara Graham-Mulhall, New York Medical Journal, Vol. 113 (January 15, 1921), 106-11.
• Opium Evil Up to League - NY Times, July 3, 1921
• Marahuana - A New Menace - Chapter 23 of the Black Candle by By Emily F. Murphy, Police Magistrate and Judge of the Juvenile Court, Edmonton, Canada, 1922
• What Prohibition Has Done to America - by Fabian Franklin, 1922
• Narcotic Bill is Signed - New Law Establishes a Federal Board to Control Imports - NY Times, May 27, 1922
• Prohibition  - Chapter XXXVII, from The American Government  By Frederic J. Haskin, 1923 
• Labor Secretary Backs New War on Drug Traffic - January 10, 1923
• Marihuana is Newest Drug - New York Times January 11, 1923 - Smoked in Cigarette-- Is Shown at Women's Meeting.
• Drugs Sold to Pupils, New York Times February 3, 1923; Rochester Peddlers Are Said to Accost Them After School.
• Ask World Control of Drug Production - NY Times, May 3, 1923
• 1,500,000 Drug Users in America, - The New York Times May 14, 1923
• Asks Law to Forbid Making of Heroin - NY Times, December 25, 1923
• The New Galahad - Comments on alcohol Prohibition by H. L. Mencken, from The American Mercury, March and April, 1924
• Hot Baths for Drug Users, The New York Times March 9, 1924, State Reformatory for Women Has Novel Treatment.
• Judge Rutherford and Alcohol Prohibition - The second president of The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Judge Rutherford, was an alcoholic, and was furious about the liquor prohibition in the USA. In this article from the Watchtower of November 1, 1924, he explains why.
• One Million Americans Victims of Drug Habit - The New York Times November 9, 1924
• A Minor De Quincey - Louis J. Bragman, M.D. Syracuse, N. Y. Medical Journal and Record Vol. CXXI -- January to June, 1925
• Linder v. United States - No. 183. U.S. Supreme Court, 268 U.S. 5, Submitted March 9, 1925. Decided April 13, 1925.

• In this landmark case, the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously, 9-0, that narcotics agents had no legal right to interfere in the medical prescription of narcotics -- even if the prescription was solely intended to maintain the narcotics addict on their drug of choice. This was a major legal setback to the supporters of the narcotics laws who wanted to stop narcotics maintenance as a moral issue. In response, the narcotics agents got around the ruling by indicting 15,000 people in the following years (by their own records) but didn't bring any of them to trial simply because they knew they would lose in court. The indictments, however, were sufficient to instill enough fear to permanently stop all medical attempts at narcotics maintenance in the United States. More information on this topic will soon be coming to the library.

• Mexico Bans Marihuana - New York Times December 29, 1925 - To Stamp Out Drug Plant Which Crazes Its Addicts
• Indian Hemp - Chapter XIX from Opium as an International Problem, the Geneva Conferences, 1925
• Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings on National Prohibition, April, 1926
• Our Home Hasheesh Crop - Literary Digest, April 23, 1926
• Foes of Drug Evil Call a World Meeting - NY Times, July 13, 1926
• Our War on Drugs Told - NY Times, July 14, 1926
• Says Drug Addicts Number 1,000,000 - NY Times July 8, 1926 - Captain Hobson Charges Health Service Suppressed Report on American Victims. - Doctors Dispute Figures
• America's Resolution Calling for End of Drug Traffic Adopted in Geneva - NY Times, August 30, 1926
• Opium Conference Backs Porter Plan - NY Times, August 31, 1926
• Drug Addicts Increase - NY Times January 3, 1927
• Tranum v. Stringer, 113 So. 541 (Ala. 1927) - Alabama Supreme Court Decision on search and seizure of alcohol in an automobile.
• Hemp Varieties of Improved Type Are Result of Selection - USDA 1928
• Opens World Drive on Drug Traffic Mussolini Offers Support - NY Times, March 8, 1928
• New Drug Cure Swamps Bellevue - The New York Times December 18, 1928
• Tightening up the Harrison Act - Chapter 9 of the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs, 1972
• Marijuana and Alcohol Prohibition - Chapter 55 of the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
•  The Federal Council of Churches and Prohibition
• Fiorello LaGuardia on Prohibition - The Mayor of New York's statement on Prohibition.
• A Glimpse Behind the Mask of Prohibition, by Percy Andrae
• Prohibition-Era Cartoon on the Anti-Saloon League
• Student Testimony Against Prohibition
• Women's National Committee for Law Enforcement
• The Killing of Henry Virkula - Killed in the name of alcohol Prohibition
• Comments on Alcohol Prohibition by President Herbert Hoover, 1929
• Unanimous In Rejecting Narcosan, The New York Times January 12, 1929
• Coolidge Signs Narcotics Farm Bill - NY Times January 20, 1929
• Judge Upholds Dry Killer, So He Goes Free - Chicago Times - February 12, 1929
• Seizure of Diplomatic Liquor Creates International Incident -Time Magazine, April 1, 1929
• The Nightmare of Cocaine, By A Former "Snow-Bird" North American Review, Vol. 227 (April, 1929), 418-22.
• Two Federal Prison Farms to Care for Drug Addicts - NY Times, April 14, 1929
• The Sinking of the I'm Alone - Song about the sinking of a rum running boat by Prohibition agents, 1929
• The Opium Problem - Terry and Pellens, 1929
• Smoking Marihuana Upheld in Panama - Supreme Court Rules Use of Indian Hemp Not Forbidden After Man Is Arrested. Special Cable to The New York Times, September 9, 1929
• Claims Quick "Dope" Cure, NY Times, November 10 1929, German Physician Uses Psychoanalysis To Open Sanatorium
• Narcotic Remedy Claimed, The New York Times December 11, 1929, Egyptian Doctor Said to Have Effected Fifteen Cures.
• Elliot Ness, The Man Behind the Myth -- Online electronic biography
• Al Capone - Web site from the Chicago Historical Society
• Volstead Act Statistics - Alcohol Prohibition - 1920-1929
  • Arrests under the Volstead Act
  • Appropriations per Arrest Under the Volstead Act
  • Appropriations per Conviction Under the Volstead Act
  • Casualties per 1,000 Arrests Under the Volstead Act
  • Agents Injured and Killed Under the Volstead Act
  • Autos and Boats Seized Under the Volstead Act
  • Liquor and Beer Seized Under the Volstead Act
  • Convictions and Acquittals Under the Volstead Act
  • Deaths Due to Alcohol, Cook County 1910-1926
  • Apparent Consumption of Beverage Alcohol in the US, 1850-1983

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