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[date unknown]
The Honorable.
The Secretary of Agriculture.

Sir:
In accordance with the provisions of Section 8 of the Act of June 14, 1930, as amended, entitled “An Act to Create in the Treasury Department a Bureau of Narcotics, and For Other Purposes,” I am required to cooperate with the several States in the suppression of the abuse of narcotic drugs in their respective jurisdictions.   To that end, this Department has urged upon the various State Legislatures the necessity for enacting the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act, drafted by representatives of this Department in cooperation with representatives of the several States, and to include therein a provision for the suppression of the abuse of Cannabis Sativa, L.   To date twenty-six of the States have enacted the Uniform Act and twenty-seven of them have placed on their statute books prohibitive measures designed to suppress the abuse of cannabis, which is becoming more and more a menace through the use marihuana cigarettes.

This Department’s attention has now been drawn to Farmers’ Bulletin No. 663 entitled “Drug Plants Under Cultivation”, which it is understood is being distributed free of charge by your Department, and is offered for sale to the public at a nominal sum through the Office of the Superintendent of Documents.   This pamphlet describes methods of cultivating cannabis to the best advantage, and it is believed that information along this line will be seized upon by those interested in its illicitly production and sale.

It is realized that the reprinting of this bulletin would mean an additional outlay of funds by your Department, but it is felt that the amount involved could hardly be deemed sufficient to justify a continuation of its distribution, in the face of the possibility that very adverse criticism of this government may result, in the event the Opium Advisory Committee should call upon this country to explain and justify the distribution of certain of the matter contained in this bulletin.

In requesting that the present number of copies on hand in your Department and in the hands of the Superintendent of Documents be destroyed, and that the latter official be requested to withdraw this issue from publication and sale, I feel that it is hardly necessary to decry any idea of international criticism of the action of your Department, and that none will be implied by you.   From time to time occasions must arise where the aims of two or more Departments of the Government, all intended for the common good of the Nation, will be found to conflict; and it is respectfully submitted that in this instance the matter should be so adjusted as to avoid any possibility of national or international censure.

Respectfully,

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