258 U.S. 250 (1922)
The Narcotic Act was enacted on December 17, 1914.1 Section 2 of that statute prohibited the sale of derivatives of opium and coca leaves except pursuant to a written order on a form issued in blank by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.2 Defendants in error were subsequently indicted in federal district court for selling specified quantities of such derivatives to another person without complying with the order requirement.3
The indictment contained no allegation that the defendants knew the character of the substances they had sold.4 The defendants responded by filing a demurrer that challenged the indictment for its failure to charge knowledge of the inhibited drugs.5 After considering the demurrer the District Court sustained it and quashed the indictment.6
The United States then brought a writ of error directly to the Supreme Court of the United States under the Criminal Appeals Act of March 2, 1907.7 This procedural path brought before the Court the question of whether the District Court had properly interpreted the Narcotic Act in requiring an allegation of scienter in the indictment.8
Whether an indictment charging a violation of section 2 of the Narcotic Act of December 17, 1914, must allege that the defendants sold the inhibited drugs knowing them to be such?9
The general rule at common law was that the scienter was a necessary element in the indictment and proof of every crime, and this was followed in regard to statutory crimes even where the statutory definition did not in terms include it.10 There has been a modification of this view in respect to prosecutions under statutes the purpose of which would be obstructed by such a requirement.11 It is a question of legislative intent to be construed by the court.12 In regulatory measures in the exercise of the police power, where the emphasis of the statute is evidently upon achievement of some social betterment rather than the punishment of crimes as in cases of mala in se, the State may provide that he who shall do them shall do them at his peril and will not be heard to plead in defense good faith or ignorance.13
No. The Narcotic Act has been held by this court to be a taxing act with the incidental purpose of minimizing the spread of addiction to the use of poisonous and demoralizing drugs.14 Section 2 of the Narcotic Act emphasizes securing a close supervision of the business of dealing in these dangerous drugs by the taxing officers of the Government. It merely uses a criminal penalty to secure recorded evidence of the disposition of such drugs as a means of taxing and restraining the traffic.15 Its manifest purpose is to require every person dealing in drugs to ascertain at his peril whether that which he sells comes within the inhibition of the statute, and if he sells the inhibited drug in ignorance of its character, to penalize him.16 The established facts show that the defendants were indicted for selling derivatives without a written order, but the indictment did not allege knowledge, and the District Court quashed it on demurrer for that reason.17
Because the statute does not make knowledge an element, the demurrer should have been overruled.18
The judgment of the District Court sustaining the demurrer and quashing the indictment is reversed.19