U.S. State Department Deceives China's Emperor

From my unpublished manuscript "Coca- Forgotten Medicine"

What stimulant would not be deleterious if so injected?

While some nations – particularly those already familiar with products as Vin Mariani -- would object to re-writing their laws to ban coca products, and hence only re-write the laws to largely prohibit concentrated cocaine and the opiates, those unfamiliar with coca products were more easily swayed into banning them via confusion with isolated cocaine in highly concentrated doses.

This was evident with the efforts of U.S. officials to deceive China, where Vin Mariani and Coca and Coca preparations where generally unknown (and where there may have been no cocaine control laws at all); there, Wright directed the U.S. representatives to define cocaine simply as a drug that is injected and which has deleterious effects upon human health -- altogether bypassing the low potency use.— in an effort to promote cocaine control laws in China adopting an absolutist stance against cocaine and hence fail to exempt the Coca preparations. In a letter from “The Prince of Ching” to the U.S. State Department dated December 10, 1909:

The Hsing-Chuan-Yung reports that having been informed that western countries now have a drug called Cocaine which will satisfy the opium craving and which is even more injurious than opium, and that considerable quantities of this drug have been imported into Amoy, he inquired the Commissioner of Customs about the matter. The Commissioners replied as follows:

Cocaine is made in foreign countries from the I-shih-lo tree (Erythroxlon?). It is used to deaden pain and is classified as an anesthetic. If one takes Morphine he only experiences a little latitude and there may still be a chance to save him, but if one takes this drug his limbs lose all strength and he suffers from extreme depression. Its evil effects are greater than those of Morphine. A statement has been drawn up showing the importers of Cocaine during the last year.

The Taotai remarks that Morphine has just been prohibited: that Cocaine is a similar anesthetic; that on taking the drug the limbs of the user lose their strength and that it is administered by the hypodermic needle [emphasis added: the sole context to produce the symptoms of cocaine poisoning misleadingly presented in this correspondence as intrinsic with any use of the drug in any form] so that the skin and flesh of the victim suppurate and death finally ensues. Since it is worse than Morphine and the Taotai asks that Wai Wu Pu be requested to communicate with the Ministers of the different Pwers in reference to prohibiting the importation of the drug. On receipt of this report from Taotai the Viceroy at once ordered the Bureau of Foreign Affairs to investigate this matter thoroughly in conjunction with the Amoy Taotai and make a report. Their report is as follows:

“The Commissioner of Customs states that Cocaine is of materially different in its effects from Morphine, and that the British doctor Lien-ni has analyzed the drug and has pronounced it similar to Morphine in its effects, but more injurious. Therefore it ought to be prohibited and the regulations concerning Morphia should be applied to it in order to avoid the evil effects of the poison.”

“The Viceroy now therefore requests the Board of Foreign Affairs take into consideration measures for the prohibition of the drug.”

My Board observes that since Cocaine appears to be of the nature of Morphine and even more injurious that it ought to be prohibited in just the manner as Morphine. We now call Your Excellency’s attention to this matter and ask that instructions may be issued to all American merchants accordingly. Your Excellency is requested to send a reply by a necessary dispatch.

Seal of the Wai Wu Pu

Thus, for societies without exposure to Coca, cocaine was more easily defined as a drug in its worst context – administered by the hypodermic needle – whence it can be quite debilitating, by writing about it in a fashion as if these bad effects were intrinsic to the drug, that is, regardless of how taken, whether through dinking Coca or shooting cocaine.