Pure Food and Drug Act

This is an article about the United States Food and Drug Act; for the Canadian version see Food and Drugs Act. For the band see Pure Food and Drug Act (band).

Pure Food and Drug Act

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Full title	Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906
Enacted by the	59th United States Congress
Effective	January 01, 1907
Citations
Public Law	59-384
Stat.	34 Stat. 768
Codification
Legislative history
Passed the Senate on June 30, 1906 () Signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on
Major amendments
Relevant Supreme Court cases
None

Major U.S. Federal drug control laws
File:Marijuana icon.jpg
1906 Pure Food and Drug Act
Regulates labeling of products containing certain drugs including cocaine and heroin
1914 Harrison Narcotics Tax Act
Regulates opiates and cocaine
1937 Marihuana Tax Act
Criminalizes marijuana
1964 Convention on Narcotics
Treaty to control marijuana
1970 Controlled Substance Act
Scheduling list for drugs

The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906 is a United States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines. The Act arose due to public education and exposés from Muckrakers such as Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, social activist Florence Kelley, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, and President Theodore Roosevelt.

Labeling of Habit-Forming Drugs

The Pure Food and Drug Act required that certain specified drugs, including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and cannabis, be accurately labeled with contents and dosage. Previously many drugs had been sold as patent medicines with secret ingredients or misleading labels. Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and other such drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they were labeled. It is estimated that sale of patent medicines containing opiates decreased by 33% after labeling was mandated. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 is cited by drug policy reform advocates such as James P. Gray as a successful model for re-legalization of currently prohibited drugs by requiring accurate labels, monitoring of purity and dose, and consumer education.

Coca-Cola

The Pure Food and Drug Act was initially concerned with ensuring products were labeled correctly. Later efforts were made to outlaw certain products that were not safe, followed by efforts to outlaw products which were safe but not effective. For example, an attempt to outlaw Coca-Cola in 1909 because of its excessive caffeine; caffeine replaced cocaine as the active ingredient in coca-cola in 1903. In the case United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, the judge found that Coca-Cola had a right to use caffeine as it saw fit, although excessive litigation costs caused Coca-Cola to settle out of court with the United States Government. The caffeine amount was reduced.

Food and Drug Administration

The 1906 Act paved the way for the eventual creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is generally considered to be that agency's founding date, though the agency existed before the law was passed and was not named FDA until later. The law itself was largely replaced by the much more comprehensive Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.

See also

• Food Administration
• Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
• Food Quality Protection Act
• Meat Inspection Act

Further reading

• Barkan, I. D. (1985 January;). "Industry invites regulation: the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906". American Journal of Public Health. 75 (1): 18–26. doi:10.2105/AJPH.75.1.18. PMC 1646146 Freely accessible. PMID 3881052. 
• The State Of Connecticut. Connecticut Agricultural & Experiment Station Annual Reports. New Haven.  For years preceding and following passage of the Act:
  • 1896, First report of the station on adulterated food products; 1897; 1898; 1899; 1900; 1901; 1902; 1903; 1904; 1905; 1906; 1907: Food, Food, Drugs; 1908: Not located; 1909: Not located; 1910: Not located; 1911: Food, Drugs
• Greeley, Arthur Philip (1907). The Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1906: A Study with Text of the Act, Annotated, the Rules and Regulations for the Enforcement of the Act, Food Inspection, Decisions and Official Food Standards. Washington, D.C.: J. Byrne & Company. 

External links

• The Wiley Act on FDA
• Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 Full-text

fr:Pure Food and Drug Act pl:Ustawa o czystości żywności i leków