# Narcotic Control Act of 1956, Public Law 728, ch. 629, 70 Stat. 567, approved 18 July 1956

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/govinfo-narcotic-control-act-1956/

The statute that set mandatory prison terms for narcotics sales and conspiracies, from five to twenty years for a first sale offense, and gave Bureau of Narcotics agents added enforcement authority.

Public Law 728, chapter 629, H.R. 11619, approved July 18, 1956: "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act to provide for a more effective control of narcotic drugs and marihuana, and for other related purposes." It "may be cited as the 'Narcotic Control Act of 1956.'" The page prints the public-law number as "Public Law 728" and does not print a Congress number with it; none is added here.

Section 103 rewrote section 7237 of the Internal Revenue Code. Its penalties apply to whoever "commits an offense, or conspires to commit an offense." For a sale or transfer without a written order, the offender "shall be imprisoned not less than 5 or more than 20 years" and may be fined up to $20,000; for a second or subsequent offense, "not less than 10 or more than 40 years." A sale to a person under 18 by an offender who was 18 or older carries the same ten-to-forty-year term. Section 104 added a new section 7607 to the Code, "Additional authority for Bureau of Narcotics and Bureau of Customs," which the research pass read as authorizing the Bureau's agents to carry firearms and to make arrests without a warrant for narcotics violations. The stored extract ends at the start of that section, and a further section on heroin sales to minors was read in the full print but not stored.

Because the penalties reach conspiracies, they governed the sentences in the federal narcotics-conspiracy trials of the late 1950s. In 1964 Commissioner Henry L. Giordano told a Senate subcommittee that this was "the most significant legislation in more than 40 years" against the spread of addiction ([his testimony](/items/psi-1964-giordano-testimony/)).

## Sources

- U.S. Government Publishing Office (govinfo), United States Statutes at Large, vol. 70: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-70-Pg567.pdf