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Department of State
Washington
August 6, 1935
INFORMAL

My dear Mr. Anslinger:
Referring to your letter of July 31, in regard to publications issued by Department of Agriculture, describing methods of cultivating cannabis sativa to the best advantage, I have read with interest and surprised Farmer’s Bulletin No. 663, “Drug Plants Under Cultivation”, a copy of which accompanied your letter under reply.

The impropriety of having information of this kind in regard to cannabis circulated by the government seems to me obvious.   I am surprised that the existence of this bulletin has not previously caused adverse comment either here or abroad.   With the increasing attention that is being given to the subject of cannabis, I am afraid that we may any day be called upon, perhaps in the Opium Advisory Committee, to explain and justify the distribution of such information by the Government.

H.J. Anslinger, Esquire,
Commissioner of Narcotics,
Treasury Department
Washington, D.C.

I gather from the Secretary of Agriculture’s letter to the Treasury Department, dated January 25, 1935, that the only reason why that Department does not withdraw the present edition of Bulletin 663 at once is because it will cost money to print a new edition.   However, I note that the bulletin in question is sold by the Superintendent of Documents at five cents a copy. Presumably that sale price covers the cost of printing.   It would seem to me that the amount of money involved could hardly be sufficient to justify a continuation of the distribution of this bulletin in the face of the possibility that very disagreeable adverse criticism of the Government might any day result.   If the Department of Agriculture has a thousand copies of the bulletin in stock, the amount of money involved would hardly be more than fifty dollars.

I sincerely hope that your Department can prevail upon the Secretary of Agriculture to withdraw the present edition of Farmer’s Bulletin No. 663 from circulation, substituting therefor, if desired, an edition which will omit the reference to cannabis.

Sincerely yours,
(signed) Stuart J. Fuller,
Assistant Chief,
Division of Far Eastern Affairs.

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