Harrison_Narcotics_Act

Harrison Narcotics Act The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 In the early seventeenth century a small Christian cult known as the puritans left Europe for a new life in North America. The Puritans brought with them supplies; food, tools, clothing, weapons, and all the necessities to survive their new un-developed environment. The Puritans also brought with them, forty-two tons of beer, and ten thousand gallons of wine. Thus by arriving early and in quantity alcohol secured its place as the most ‘American’ of the psychoactive drugs, though other more ‘exotic’ drugs were accepted and used throughout the young nation. (J. June) Up until 1883 there were no restrictions on psychoactive drugs. As the nineteenth century progressed, eating-opium could be bought in grocery and candy stores, and the promoters of patent medicines, including even “soothing” preparations for children, took to loading their products with the drug. It was the Civil War, however, that gave the American addiction rate its big boost. In those bitter years, morphine, and the new syringe proved a blessed substitute for inadequate battlefield ministrations, and opium was always in short supply because it was an effective antidote for the ever-present dysentery which afflicted soldiers under both standards. There were three different opium, drug, drugs, addicts, law, act, harrison, american, chinese, addiction, states, people, narcotics, narcotic, china, after, addict, war, united, under, new, problem, morphine, medical, international, help, way, time, state, result, police, however, even, different, crime, came