Germany's Gathering Storm, 1931
American papers and politicians made the Moratorium an anchor to draw attention away from the cocaine, marijuana, hashish, coca leaves and newfangled opiates limitation convention. Few suspected the USA produced more cocaine than its commercial rival Germany Newspaper headlines for 03JULY1931 painted a grim picture of Germany.( link ) One-third of the workforce was jobless, clashes among police, communist and nationalsocialist agitators were breaking out everywhere. ( link ). France was making trouble, large banks were failing and German officials were again begging for a moratorium on loan and reparations payments, just as they had in March of 1922. Back then it was the looming Jones-Miller Act to ban all importation of heroin into the US . Government agencies and VA hospitals had already stopped buying the painkiller of which Germany was the leading producer. The following year hyperinflation completely wrecked Germany's economy.( link ) But the 1931 situatio...