BARBITURATE CONTROL MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1952 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS OF THE EXECUTIVE SESSION The subcommittee met at 10:45 a.m., in the Ways and Means Committee room, Hon. Hale Boggs (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Boggs, Granger, Jenkins, and Simpson. Also present: Ed Croft, legislative counsel; Ward Hussey, legislative counsel; Leo H. Irwin, committee staff; and C. W. Davis, committee clerk. Mr. BOGGS. The committee will come to order. For the record, at the last meeting of the subcommittee, we asked the Federal Security people to pass on data and recommendations in connection with the problem of barbiturates. The committee recommended legislation tightening the penalties on violation of the Narcotics Act, which recommendations have now become law. On April 18, 1951, I addressed a communication to Mr. Ewing in connection with this problem generally, and in July we received a reply thereto from Mr. Ewing. (For matter referred to above, see p. 35.) Mr. BOGGS. Now we have certain gentlemen present here. I wish you gentlemen would identify yourselves for the record. STATEMENTS OF GEORGE P. LARRICK, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER; WILLIAM W. GOODRICH, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL; AND G. A. GRANGER, MEDICAL OFFICER, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. GOODRICH. George P. Larrick, Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs, William W. Goodrich, assistant general counsel, and J. A. Granger, medical officer, Food and Drug Administration. After receiving your letter of April 18, Mr. Chairman, we had a meeting, on April 26, with the Bureau of Narcotics, the Department of Justice, the Tax Legislative Council, and the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Tennyson was there for the Bureau of Narcotics. We explored, as directed in your letter, some type of control at the Federal level over the barbiturates, with the idea of confining the distribution and possession of these drugs to legitimate distribution channels and keeping them in the hands of people who had a legitimate need for them. 1 The Bureau of Narcotics, as they testified before the committee before, were against putting the control of barbiturates under the Narcotics Act. Their reasons were, first, that their problems of control of narcotics were dissimilar to those related to barbiturates, in that their control problems were largely matters of control of imports, whereas the control of barbiturates represented primarily controls over domestic production; and second, that the Bureau has a limited staff, fully engaged in trying to enforce the laws regulating narcotics and marijuana, and they didn't feel that they could undertake the barbiturate problem without taking away from the effective control of narcotics. The representatives of the Tax Legislative Council made the point that the Bureau of Internal Revenue was against any new tax measures that were primarily regulatory in nature. They made the point that the Bureau was fully engaged in collecting the revenue, that they had such a big job to do with that that they couldn't very well undertake regulatory statutes under the taxing power, and they didn't want to do it unless there were clear constitutional reasons why the taxing power had to be used instead of the interstate commerce power. We, then, after the meeting, wrote letters to the two departments that had been in attendance, outlining a plan of regulatory control and asking the Department of Justice whether the interstate commerce powers might be used to regulate the distribution of barbiturates, and also asking whether there were any advantages, constitutionalwise, to use of the taxing power in this field. We received a letter back from the Department of Justice in May telling us that it was in their opinion constitutional to regulate the distribution of barbiturates regardless of the state of their production under the interstate commerce powers. That involved regulating both interstate and intrastate sale and possession of the drugs. Mr. SIMPSON. That would be on the same principle as regulating liquor? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir. Mr. SIMPSON. And our recent cigarette bill that we passed, pertaining to interstate commerce? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir. Mr. BOGGS. Let me ask a question, here. When the Narcotics people were here, Mr. Anslinger took the position, if I remember correctly, that no Federal regulation was needed in the field of barbiturates. And he argued very persuasively for State regulation. If I remember, again, correctly-it has been some little time-it was brought out, was it not, Tom, that there were 14 States that had no laws at all? Mr. SIMPSON. Something like that. Mr. GOODRICH. The uniform law was prepared by the American Pharmaceutical Association a few years ago and has been passed by a few States. Ohio was one of the first States to pass it. Looking into the Ohio Code, you see that Illinois, Michigan, and a few other States have passed it, and since then there have been a number of other States passing laws. Texas, my own State, recently passed one, because the problem has been in the public eye, as all of you know. Mr. BOGGS. Is it your feeling that some type of Federal regulation is required, whether it be under the commerce power or the taxing power? Mr. GOODRICH. Based on our experience with food and drug laws throughout the States, where it is very difficult to get uniformity, I would say that many of the States that have food and drug laws have no personnel assigned to enforce them. The distribution of barbiturates is primarily an interstate business. Therefore, there is some Federal control, the States have very great difficulties, say, in controlling manufacturers in other States who send the drugs into the State where regulation is attempted. Mr. JENKINS. There is no food that I know of that circulates, that is dangerous as these barbiturates are. Of course, there can be contaminated meats, which would be destructive, but there is no food that circulates that has been especially prepared in its finished form that is dangerous to take, is there? Mr. GOODRICH. Nothing comparable to this. The committee has seen the pictures of the effects. Mr. BOGGS. I just wanted to bring out that it looked as if the addiction was about as bad from these barbiturates as any kind of narcotic. Mr. LARRICK. We think that both State and Federal legislation will be required to give a full measure of protection in this field. Mr. BOGGS. That is what you have in the case of other narcotics. I know our State passed a very stringent law. Mr. GOODRICH. Mr. Anslinger also asks that the States pass acts, and that there be supplementation by that kind of control. Mr. SIMPSON. Do we have no Federal law? Mr. GOODRICH. We have a law that habit-forming drugs be sold only on prescription. That regulates the sale of drugs that have once passed in interstate commerce. It is effective in controlling the activities of pharmacists and people who regularly deal in prescription medicines, but there are problems in this field where you are dealing with a drug that is desired for nonmedical use as well as for medical use, where they get outside the drug store, and where you have problems of intrastate distribution or of distribution where you are unable to say where the drug came from. It is handed out in an envelope, with no labeling and no identifying marks. And for that reason, the present law, which provides that they be sold only on prescription, is partly but not wholly effective. Mr. SIMPSON. Then we need two things. We need State cooperation, and in many States the passage of a State uniform law, and in addition to that we need an addition to the Federal law dealing with barbiturates. Mr. GOODRICH. That is correct, sir. Mr. SIMPSON. Is that what your purposes is this morning, to tell us what is needed? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir. Mr. SIMPSON. I was late in getting here, and I missed that. Mr. GOODRICH. Our purpose was to come here and tell you what we had done in response to the subcommittee's request and to outline the plan of control we had outlined in response to Chairman Boggs' letter. Mr. SIMPSON. Does it include recommendations? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes. Mr. BOGGS. You will just summarize this letter, will you not? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir. We have recommended that there be established a system of license control which would license manufacturers and distributors who are regularly engaged in the business, and would allow them to handle barbiturates under the licensing control. We have exempted from licenses, somewhat as the Narcotics Act does, those people who obtain the barbiturates on prescription, nurses and employees of registered people, State and Federal people, who have the drugs in the course of their official duties. Mr. SIMPSON. Are they not now covered under the present law? Mr. GOODRICH. They are covered, but in this way. They are covered under the provision that you must sell the drugs on prescription only. Our plan of control puts an additional regulation on them, that anyone who manufactures, compounds, possesses, or disposes of barbiturates must be licensed. And it would be an offense to sell to an unlicensed person. Mr. SIMPSON. But you said that would not include the doctors and nurses. Mr. GOODRICH. Under this, we would have the nurses included. Mr. SIMPSON. What did you just say, then? Mr. GOODRICH. That the nurses would be under this, if they were under the supervision of a licensed practitioner. Mr. JENKINS. You call them barbiturates. What do they include? Why can you not get a better name than that, so that the people would know what it means? Or are there a number of these that have an active principle that is destructive like that? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir. The problems are related to barbituric acid and its chemical derivatives, which are habit-forming. The trouble about writing them out is that they are usually trade names. You know them as Nembutal, Seconal, Tuinal, and other trade names. For that reason, it is difficult. Mr. JENKINS. Does it include marijuana? Mr. GOODRICH. No, sir. That is all that is included under our regulation, barbituric acid and its chemical derivatives. Mr. BOGGS. How many derivatives are there now? Mr. GOODRICH. About 20. Mr. JENKINS. That localizes it. What are you going to do about marijuana? Mr. GOODRICH. That is already under the Narcotics Act, sir. We have drafted two bills, which are very rough drafts and need quite a bit of work done on them before they are proposed as legislation, technical correcting work. The first provides the type of license control which we advocated in our letter. Since writing the letter here, it has been circulated rather widely in the drug trade. Recently, the drug trade conference met in Washington and considered what their position would be on this legislation, and I thought I might outline that to the committee for your information. The drug trade conference is a group comprised of the manufacturing associations, the Association of Drug Manufacturers, the American Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, the National Association of Retail Druggists, the National Association of Wholesale Druggists, the American Pharmaceutical Association, and the Proprietary Association. They are the big associations who make up the drug trade. They invited to attend their meetings a representative of the American Medical Association. Their vote on the legislation has been passed, and I think it is fair to state that their position is, first, that the control should be State control. Second, the American Medical Association take a strong position that if licensing of physicians is put into the bill, they will give it their "highest priority of opposition"; that is the way they describe it. Mr. BOGGS. Let me get this straight. Do they recommend any legislation? Mr. GOODRICH. They recommend State legislation, sir. That is their first position. Mr. SIMPSON. Both the American Medical and the druggists? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir. They recommend State control over this problem. And they are especially opposed to anything that involves the use of the words "license" or "registration." They don't like that kind of control. And they say that if there must be some Federal control, it should not involve licensing and registration. We proposed licensing as the best way we could think of, of identifying the lawful possessor and distributor of barbiturates. The other alternative was to spell out in the statute, in words that would have general meaning, who were the legitimate possessors. That would leave some questions open that could only be settled by a prosecution or a seizure, whereas we thought that if a person were licensed, then he would be identified in the lawful possessing group and the lawful distributing group. Mr. SIMPSON. Why can we not just get rid of all of it? Is it a necessary drug? Does anybody need it? Mr. GOODRICH. Yes, sir; it is a very useful medical drug. Dr. Granger could tell you more about it, but it is one of the most widely used drugs in medical practice as a sedative. Mr. SIMPSON. For instance, suppose it were just a nuisance. We could then simply get rid of it. Mr. LARRICK. I think the record should show that the drug is practically indispensable to the practice of medicine. Mr. GOODRICH. So, as we see it, if the committee decides to do something in the field of Federal legislation, it should be decided, in our view, whether you will use the licensing approach-and we have drafted a bill which has that in it-or whether you decide to use the objective definition approach, that is, by spelling out in the statute without any licensing provision who the people are who lawfully might handle and dispose of these drugs. We think that any type of control must involve both the intrastate distribution of the drug as well as the interstate, mainly because when you find the abuses you find them where you are unable to identify the drug and unable to trace it from an interstate source. Mr. SIMPSON. Now, there is where you confuse me. A bit ago, you said that the States should have their own set-up. Mr. SIMPSON. Now, you say that the law we pass should what?include both the interstate and the intrastate? 97199-52--2 |