by Elaine Carey
19. Appendix 1, Second International Opium Conference, Senate doc. 733, 62nd Congress, 2nd session.
20. Beginning in the late 1800s, Mexico and the United States exchanged information regarding the Chinese in Mexico. By the 1930s, Mexican consuls in Asia were reporting on ships illegally bringing heroin and Chinese workers to Mexico. Port masters along the coasts had to respond to the secretary of foreign relations as well as the Department of Health regarding the illegal transport of heroin and people. Concerns about international crime grew during this same period. See Paul Knepper, The Invention of International Crime: A Global Issue in the Making, 1881–1914 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
21. See Buffington, Criminal and Citizen in Modern Mexico; and Piccato, City of Suspects.
22. Carlos Roumagnac, Los criminales en México: ensayo de psicología criminal (Mexico City: Tipografía “El Fénix,” 1904), 159.
23. Ibid.
24. There are many books about the Mexican Revolution, but the most comprehensive is Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). The Constitutionalist army led by Carranza fought against Victoriano Huerta after the murder of President Francisco Madero, whose election had led to the end of Porfirio Díaz’s dictatorship but triggered the fighting. Later, the Constitutionalist would turn on his generals, Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.
25. See Olga Cárdenas de Ojeda, Toxicomanía y narcotráfico: aspecto legales (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1976); and Ricardo Pérez Montfort, “Los orígenes del narco: historias primigenia,” Centro de información para la prensa, at http://web.cip.etecsa.cu, accessed April 2000.
26. José María Rodríguez, “La profilaxis de la sífilis en del Departamento de Salubridad Pública,” Boletín del departamento de salubridad pública 4 (January 31, 1919), 1–5.
27. John D. Rockefeller, like other business titans turned philanthropists, was concerned about health, both physical and moral. He funded studies on prostitution and eugenics as well as studies to eradicate diseases. See E. Richard Brown, Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979); Marco Cueto, ed., Missionaries of Science: The Rockefeller Foundation and Latin America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994); Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003); and Harry Bruinius, Better for All the World: The Secret History of Forced Sterilization and America’s Quest for Racial Purity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
28. Excélsior, July 8, 1919. Because of the perceived connection between poppy production and the Chinese, Chinese immigrants were targeted for attack. See José Jorge Gómez Izquierdo, El movimiento anti-chino en México (1871–1934): problemas del racismo y el nacionalismo durante la Revolución Mexicana (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1991).
29. “La resolución tomada por el Consejo S. de Salubridad relativa a la ratificación de la Convención Internacional sobre el Opio celebrada en la Haya el año de 1912,” Fondo Presidentes Obregón-Calles, AGN.
30. League of Nations, Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs: Revised List Drawn Up by the Sub-Committee of Experts on Drugs, Preparations and Proprietary Medicines Coming Under the Hague (1912) and Geneva (1925) Opium Conventions and the Limitation Convention (Geneva, 1931), 1940.
31. Mexico was one of thirteen nations that signed but did not ratify the convention.
32. Letter to the president, vol. 311, document 812–5-8, AGN.
33. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was a state senator, he received a number of letters that protested the passage of various bills that would limit the sale of cocaine and narcotic medicines. Edmond Congar Brown, attorney, to Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 22, 1913; and Charles B. Towns to Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 31, 1913; New York State Senator, box 8, FDR Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York (hereafter FDR Library).
34. Charles Edward Terry, “Further Study and Report on the Use of Narcotics Under the Provision of Federal Laws in Six Communities,” Bureau of Social Hygiene, New York, 1927, box 219 114504, New York Academy of Medicine, New York, (hereafter NYAM). Additionally, heroin and other opiate derivatives were used to treat respiratory ailments.
35. Quoted in California Legislature, Joint Narcotic Committee, 1925, “Report on Drug Addiction in California by the State Narcotic Committee” (Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1926), 20–21, box 230, 105014, NYAM.
36. Ibid., 24–28. See also Nancy Campbell, J. P. Olsen, and Luke Walden, The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts (New York: Abrams, 2008); and “American’s First Drug Treatment Prison,” National Public Radio, November 1, 2008, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96437766, accessed May 19, 2011.
37. Terry, “Further Study and Report on the Use of Narcotics Under the Provision of Federal Laws in Six Communities,” Bureau of Social Hygiene, New York, 1927, box 219 114504, NYAM, 36.
38. The Canadian Opium and Drugs Act of 1911 covered opium and cocaine; marijuana was added in 1923. For more information, see Catherine Carstairs, Jailed for Possession: Illegal Drug Use, Regulation, and Power in Canada, 1920–1961 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). Bruce Davis and Ian Hamilton, “Lady in the Heat: A True Story of Underworld Drugs and Undercover Cops,” Narc Officer: Official Publication of the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers Association (1986); “Lady in the Heat” is a serialized work of nonfiction demonstrating a growing fear among Canadians that the United States served as a drug transshipment point. See also Marcel Martel, “Preventing the Invasion: LSD Use in Canada in the Sixties,” in Smugglers, Brothels, and Twine, ed. Carey and Marak, 160–76. Martel demonstrates the fear among Canadians that they would be swamped by drugs from America.
39. Terry, “Further Study and Report on the Use of Narcotics Under the Provision of Federal Laws in Six Communities,” Bureau of Social Hygiene, New York, 1927, box 219 114504, NYAM, 36.
40. “Estimated Average Annual Drug Addiction Among Violators of the Harrison Narcotic Act, 1922–1928,” table, reprinted in Dai, Opium Addiction in Chicago, 39.
41. Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México, Informe sobre la “Prohibition” en Estados Unidos de America, 1917. Legajo 523.16/41, Archivo de la Embajada de México en Estados Unidos de América, AHSRE.
42. Convención celebrada entre los Estados Unidos Mexicanos y los Estados Unidos de Norte América sobre importación illegal de mercancias, narcóticos, y otros productos, migración illegal de extranjeros y pesca, 1922–1926, part I, AHSRE.
43. James R. Sheffield, ambassador, to Aáron Saenz, Secretario de Relaciones Exteriores, February 7, 1927, 2.015.4(1–4)-1, Caja 3, Bebidas Embriagantes (Cantinas), Dirección General de Gobierno–Ramo Gobernación, AGN; and Pitman B. Potter, “The Positions of Canada and the United States in the Matter of Trade in Alcoholic Beverages,” American Journal of International Law 24, no. 1 (January 1930): 131.
44. The reports may be found in box 35, documents 104–2-20, Fondo Obregon y Calles, AGN.
45. “Mexico to Join US in Fight on Drugs,” New York Times, May 10, 1925; Reuter and Ronfeldt, “Quest for Integrity,” 89–153. In examining contemporary drug trafficking, Peter H. Reuter and David Ronfeldt of the RAND Corporation argue that corruption and nationalism are instrumental in the growth of drug trafficking in Mexico.
46. Reuter and Ronfeldt, “Quest for Integrity,” 89–153. By the mid-1940s, Mexico was producing thirty-two to forty metric tons of opium annually.
47. Diario Oficial 35, no. 33 (April 10, 1926).
48. H. S. Middlemiss, “Narcotic Drugs in Mexico: Testimony of Don Basilio Bulnes,” Narcotic Education: First Report of the Proceedings of the First World Conference on Narcotic Education, Philadelphia (Washington D.C.: H. S. Middlemiss, 1926), 113–17. In 1926, the ports designated for narcotic importation in the United States were D
etroit, Indianapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, and San Francisco. U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Traffic in Opium and Dangerous Drugs” (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Treasury, 1926).
49. H. S. Middlemiss, “Narcotic Drugs in Mexico: Testimony of Don Basilio Bulnes,” Narcotic Education: First Report of the Proceedings of the First World Conference on Narcotic Education, Philadelphia (Washington D.C.: H. S. Middlemiss, 1926), 113–17.
50. Ibid., 115.
51. Ibid., 115–16.
52. See Eric Michael Schantz, “All Night at the Owl: The Social and Political Relations of Mexicali’s Red-Light District, 1909–1925,” in On the Border: Society and Culture Between the United States and Mexico, ed. Andrew Grant Wood (Lanham, MD: SR Books, 2004), 91–144; and Luis Astorga, “Organized Crime and the Organization of Crime,” in Organized Crime and Democratic Governability: Mexico and the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands, ed. John Bailey and Roy Godson (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), 58–82. Even into the late 1930s, residents of Baja California complained about drug and alcohol smugglers, who had started to use airplanes. Antonio Castro to President Lázaro Cárdenas, June 15, 1938, box 997, 5633/339, Fondo Lázaro Cárdenas, AGN.
53. Narcotics Questionnaire, series 4, box 2, Bureau of Social Hygiene, Rockefeller Foundation Archive, Tarrytown, NY.
54. Ibid.
55. Demetrio López to C. Jefe de Departamento de Salubridad, December 21, 1927, file 8, box 8, Servicio Jurídico, Archivo de Secretaría de Salud, Mexico City. It should be noted that many analogous drugs were just as addictive as those they sought to replace, as is the case today.
56. See Beatriz Urías Horcasitas, Historias secretas del racismo en México (1920–1950) (Mexico City: Tusquets, 2007).
57. Harry J. Anslinger and William F. Tompkins, The Traffic in Narcotics (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1953); Harry J. Anslinger and Will Oursler, The Murderers: The Shocking Story of the Narcotic Gangs (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961); Carstairs, Jailed for Possession; Julio Guerrero, La génesis del crimen en México: estudio de psiquiatría social (Paris and Mexico City: Vda de C. Bouret, 1901); and Julio Guerrero, Causas de la transformación monetaria de México: disertación de economía política presentada a la Academia de Ciencias Sociales en México (Mexico City: Impr. del Gobierno Federal, 1905).
58. The Harrison Act required physicians and pharmacists to register with the Treasury Department, pay a tax, and keep records of the narcotic drugs they prescribed or dispensed. David T. Courtwright, Dark Paradise: A History of Opiate Addiction in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 2–4.
59. “Nab Alleged Heads of Drug Syndicate Here,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1917. When arrested, Kirshon and Singer had over $500,000 (2012: $8,969,000) worth of morphine, heroin tablets, and opium.
60. Eva Silverstein was from a long list of “queens” who had earned their “royal titles” from narcotics. In the early twentieth century, male smugglers were rarely referred to as “kings”; the term “kingpin” came later.
61. “Nab Alleged Heads of Drug Syndicate Here,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1917.
62. For a discussion of the border as a site of vice, see Eric Michael Schantz, “From the Mexicali Rose to the Tijuana Brass: Vice Tours of the United States–Mexico Border, 1910–1965” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2001). See also Wood, On the Border.
63. “Accused Drug Dealers Free,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1924. For the role of Calexico-Mexicali, see Gabriela Recio, “Drugs and Alcohol: US Prohibition and the Origins of the Drug Trade in Mexico, 1900–1930,” Journal of Latin American Studies 34, no. 1 (2002): 38–40.
64. “Accused Drug Dealers Free,” Mexicali consul to secretary of state, April 24, 1927, National Archives, 812.114, Narcotics 98.
65. Daniel Bailey, customs agent in charge, Intelligence Bulletin, no. 8, September 19, 1936, Henry Morgenthau Papers, FDR Library.
66. For a discussion of Jewish organized crime in drug distribution, see Alan A. Block, “The Snowman Cometh: Coke in Progressive New York,” Criminology 17, no. 1 (May 1979): 75–99; and David T. Courtwright, Herman Joseph, and Don Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived: An Oral History of Narcotic Use in America, 1923–1965 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989).
67. State of California, State Senate Narcotic Committee, “Report on Drug Addiction in California” (Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1926).
68. Ibid., 18.
69. Ibid. See also New York Academy of Medicine, “Second Annual Report to the Legislature of New York,” April 7, 1920; and Carleton Simon. Control of Narcotics (New York: n.p., 1923).
70. H. H. Dubs, “The Chinese in Mexico City in 1635,” Far Eastern Quarterly 1, no. 1 (1942): 387–89. Dubs argues that a small colony was established in Mexico City in 1635 to trade luxury goods. I want to thank Ray Pun for this source. National origin is always difficult to ascertain due to the often ambiguous use of the term “chino.” However, the evidence suggests that these immigrants were Chinese.
71. Evelyn Hu-DeHart, “Coolies, Shopkeepers, and Pioneers: The Chinese of Mexico and Peru, 1849–1930,” Amerasia Journal 15, no. 2 (1989): 91–116.
72. Ibid.
73. For a specific reference to controlling pharmacists as well as street vendors, see Rafael Grisi Quintano, “El tráfico de drogas,” Criminologia 3 (December 1936): 1–12.
74. Lamberto Hernández to C. Jefe del Departamento de Salubridad Pública, August 27, 1927, and Emilio Kentler to C. Jefe del Departamento de Salubridad Pública, August 27, 1927, file 10, box 4, Servicio Jurídico, Archivo de Secretaría de Salud (hereafter SJASS), Mexico City.
75. “Dr. Hugo Schroeder, comerico ilícito de drogas,” file 5, box 17, SJASS, Mexico City.
76. Dr. A. Perales Vegas to Jefe del Departamento de Salubridad Pública, August 11, 1931, box 4, SJASS, Mexico City.
77. It must be noted that foreign doctors in the United States also aroused suspicion as “dope doctors.” For example, in 1936 in Richmond, Virginia, two physicians, five pharmacists, and forty users were arrested by U.S. narcotics agents. The doctors and pharmacists involved in the case drew addicts from other states including Georgia and Tennessee. U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs” (Washington, D.C., 1936), 50–53.
78. Telegram to presidente de la república from Departamento de Salubridad, B. J. Gastelum, May 25, 1925; and telegram to Gral. J. Amaro, subsecretario de guerra, from P. Elías Calles, May 26, 1925, vol. 295, exp. 241, D2-B-10.
79. Mary Roth Walsh, Doctors Wanted, No Women Need Apply: Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835–1975 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977); Regina Markell Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); and Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
80. Olcott, Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico.
81. Dr. Ulises Valdez to Lic. Francesco Vázquez Pérez, May 29, 1931, file 12, box 4, SJASS, Mexico City.
82. These tinctures can be purchased today in certain Mexican markets.
83. Pérez Montfort, “Los orígenes del narco.”
84. Consul Henry C. A Damm, “Opium Poppy Planted in Northern Sonora,” August 16, 1927, file 8, Manchuko, Mexico Special File, 1936, RG 170, Record of Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (hereafter DEA-BNDD), NAII.
85. Robert Chao Romero, The Chinese in Mexico, 1882–1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010), 26–27.
86. Hyung-chan Kim, A Legal History of Asian Americans, 1790–1990 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994).
87. Chao Romero, The Chinese in Mexico, table 3.2. In 1926, Chinese were in every state; the largest populations were in Chihuahua, 1,037; Sonora, 3,758; Tamaulipas, 2,918; Veracruz, 1,908; Baja California, 5,889; Sinaloa, 2,019; and the F
ederal District, 1,062.
88. José Román Valez to secretario de gobernación, “Expulsión y quejas contra extranjeros,” September 1930, 2.362.22, vol. 5, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN.
89. Secretario general de Sindicato Nacional Pro-Raza to secretario de gobernación, August 20, 1926, “Expulsión y quejas contra extranjeros,” 362.2 (721.1), 5, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN.
90. Secretaría de Gobernación, El servicio de migración de México (Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1930), 36–38.
91. Campaña Anti-Chino, advertisement, “Expulsión y quejas contra extranjeros,” vol. 5, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN.
92. Hu-DeHart, “Coolies, Shopkeepers, and Pioneers”; and Chao Romero, The Chinese in Mexico, 43–45.
93. For a discussion of the use of popular culture to influence women to avoid interracial relationships, see Robert Chao Romero, “El destierro de los chinos: Popular Perceptions of Chinese-Mexican Intermarriage in the Twentieth Century,” Aztlán 32, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 113–44.
94. José Mendiola, secretario de Liga Nacional Pro-Raza, to Ministro de Gobernación, Campana Anti-Chino, January 14, 1927, file Manuel Chen, 362.2 (1–1), expulsión y quejas contra extranjeros, vol. 5, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN.
95. Carstairs, Jailed for Possession, 32–33.
96. See Chao Romero, The Chinese in Mexico, 67–96.
97. The testimonies of wives were included in a number of cases in Expulsión y quejas contra extranjeros, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN. All East Asian men in Mexico regardless of national origin were assumed to be Chinese.
98. M. M. Chen to secretario de gobernación, September 1930, 2.362.2 (24), Expulsión y quejas contra extranjeros, 5, Dirección General de Gobierno, AGN.
99. Carstairs, Jailed for Possession, 16–34.
100. Chao Romero, The Chinese in Mexico, 43–45.
101. Ibid., 136–41.
102. José Luís Trueba Lara, Los chinos de Sonora: una historia olvidada (Hermosillo: Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas, University of Sonora, 1990), 73; and Chao Romero, The Chinese in Mexico, 136–37.