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1929 drug report discussions: Formosa/Taiwan

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  America's parade float self-image, 1929 The League Opium Advisory Committee meeting of 19JAN1929 turned to the drug report for Formosa, then under Japanese control. All participants leaned eagerly forward as Japanese representative Mr Sato disclosed that this report included, for the first time, production of coca leaves and manufacture of crude coca paste. If grown from Javanese coca shrubs these leaves would be twice as strong as Andean coca . Great Britain's representative pointed with puzzlement to the claim that no coca paste, cocaine or coca leaves were exported. Mr Sato assured him that transfers from Formosa to other Japanese Islands weren't exports at all. India's representative congratulated Mr Sato on the drop in opium imports to that island, and others poured on gushing praise.  Formosa opium imports dropped by more than 90%  Sato bragged that despite there being no medical cure for opium addiction, the number of Formosan addicts fell. No new habitués w...
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The 1927 French Tariff versus Codeine Prohibition

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  1927: The U.S. had been collaborating with China to ban all manner of drugs for 22 years. So France exported a shipment of codeine-laced cough syrup U.S. customs grabbed in New York about the middle of August.  Out of nowhere came the September 9 news story that France had slapped a 400% tariff on a wide range of American exports already enroute to France .  Word of the cough syrup shipment seizure leaked out in a small newspaper ( link ) while the League of Nations was in one of its dope temperance conventions in Geneva, Switzerland. American infiltrators were lobbying for explicit international export-import controls to be applied to codeine --a morphine product similar to heroin which the United States shifted to after banning manufacture of heroin itself. Precisely because of those restrictions, many European pharmaceutical companies had switched to producing codeine for the more laissez-faire regulatory treatment this novel morphine derivative enjoyed.  Fre...
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U.S. Drug Report to League of Nations

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   Of the nearly 3 tonnes of dope seized worldwide in 1927, 89% were opium, 7% hemp, 3.6% morphine and 0.4% cocaine While New Yorkers slept in the wee hours of 19JAN1929, the Opium Advisory Committee assembled at Geneva, Switzerland for the 5th Meeting of its 12th Session to examine drug trade reports for the year 1927. The delay was mostly for foot-dragging by weak nations curious to find out what sort of coercion was planned for them, while concealing details of their own drug dealings. Fourth on the Agenda was the USA, and the Committee Chairman recalled that the summary of this report had been considered at the close of the last Session--meaning 1928 . Speaking for the United States, Mr John Kenneth Caldwell briskly offered to distribute copies of the 1928 report within 2 to 3 days. The Chairman was diplomatically dismissive and turned to the business of Formosa--a protectorate of Japan at the time which nowadays answers to Taiwan. Mr Sato explained that this 1927 report ...
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