Editing Drug prohibition (section)

===First modern drug regulations===
[[File:Illustration Papaver somniferum0.jpg|thumb|''[[Papaver somniferum]]''. The sale of drugs in the UK was regulated by the [[Pharmacy Act 1868]].]]

The first modern law in Europe for the regulating of drugs was the [[Pharmacy Act 1868]] in the United Kingdom. There had been previous moves to establish the medical and pharmaceutical professions as separate, self-regulating bodies, but the [[General Medical Council]], established in 1863, unsuccessfully attempted to assert control over drug distribution.<ref>
{{citation |title=Opium and the People, Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England |first1=Virginia |last1=Berridge |first2=Griffith |last2=Edwards |year=1981 |url=http://www.druglibrary.eu/library/books/opiumpeople/pharmact.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131225190914/http://www.druglibrary.eu/library/books/opiumpeople/pharmact.html |archive-date=December 25, 2013 |df=mdy-all }}
</ref> The act set controls on the distribution of poisons and drugs. Poisons could only be sold if the purchaser was known to the seller or to an intermediary known to both, and drugs, including [[opium]] and all preparations of opium or of [[poppy|poppies]], had to be sold in containers with the seller's name and address.<ref>{{citation|title=Pharmacy Act 1868|work=[[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]]|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/acts/pharmacy-act-1868|access-date=June 18, 2013|archive-date=December 22, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121222014834/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/acts/pharmacy-act-1868|url-status=live}}</ref>
Despite the reservation of opium to professional control, general sales did continue to a limited extent, with mixtures with less than 1 percent opium being unregulated.

After the legislation passed, the death rate caused by opium immediately fell from 6.4 per million population in 1868 to 4.5 in 1869. Deaths among children under five dropped from 20.5 per million population between 1863 and 1867 to 12.7 per million in 1871 and further declined to between 6 and 7 per million in the 1880s.<ref>{{harvnb|Berridge|Edwards|1981|loc=Ch. 10}}</ref>

In the United States, the first drug law was passed in [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco]] in 1875, banning the smoking of opium in [[opium den]]s. The reason cited was "many women and young girls, as well as young men of a respectable family, were being induced to visit the Chinese opium-smoking dens, where they were ruined morally and otherwise." This was followed by other laws throughout the country, and federal laws that barred Chinese people from trafficking in opium. Though the laws affected the use and distribution of opium by Chinese immigrants, no action was taken against the producers of such products as [[laudanum]], a [[tincture]] of opium and alcohol, commonly taken as a [[panacea (medicine)|panacea]] by white Americans. The distinction between its use by white Americans and Chinese immigrants was thus a form of [[Racial discrimination in America|racial discrimination]] as it was based on the form in which it was ingested: Chinese immigrants tended to smoke it, while it was often included in various kinds of generally liquid medicines often (but not exclusively) used by Americans of European descent. The laws targeted opium smoking, but not other methods of ingestion.<ref>[http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu6.htm Licit and Illicit Drugs – Chapter 6, Opium Smoking Is Outlawed]. Druglibrary.org. Retrieved May 25, 2012.</ref>

Britain passed the All-India Opium Act of 1878, which limited recreational opium sales to registered Indian opium-eaters and Chinese opium-smokers and prohibiting its sale to emigrant workers from British Burma.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/opium_india.cfm|title=Opium and the British Indian Empire|author=Richards, John |date=May 23, 2001|access-date=September 24, 2007}}</ref>

Following the passage of a regional law in 1895, Australia's [[Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897]] addressed opium addiction among [[Aboriginal Australians|Aborigines]], though it soon became a general vehicle for depriving them of basic rights by administrative regulation. Opium sale was prohibited to the general population in 1905, and smoking and possession were prohibited in 1908.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/liac/hot_topic/hottopic/2000/4/2.html|author=Legal Information Access Centre|title=Drug laws in Australia}}</ref>

Despite these laws, the late 19th century saw an increase in opiate consumption. This was due to the prescribing and dispensing of legal opiates by physicians and pharmacists to relieve [[menstruation]] pain. It is estimated that between 150,000 and 200,000 opiate addicts lived in the United States at the time, and a majority of these addicts were women.<ref name="kand"/>