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There is only one way by means of which humanity can be relieved of the curse of drug using, and that is to adopt methods putting the entire responsibility upon the doctor. Until the present legislation was passed in New York State, no one had ever considered the doctor’s responsibility; this most valuable medical asset and most terrible potential curse had been virtually without safeguard of any effective kind. Discussion of the drug problem in the press dealt wholly with those phases which make themselves manifest in the underworld or among the Chinese. I am reasonably certain that until very recently the world had heard nothing of the blameless men and women who had become drug-users as the result of illness. This seems strange, since there are in the United States more victims of the drug habit than there are of tuberculosis. It is estimated that fifteen per cent, of the practising physicians in the country are addicted to the habit, and although I think this is an exaggeration, it is nevertheless true that habit-forming drugs demand a heavy toll from the medical profession, wrecking able practitioners in health and reputation, and of course seriously endangering the public.

I have elsewhere explained the fact that the medical man himself is ignorant of the length to which he can safely go in the administration of drugs to his patients. If he is ignorant of what quantity and manner of dosage constitutes a peril for the patient, is it not reasonable to suppose that similar ignorance exists in his mind with regard to his own relations with the drug habit? As a matter of fact, I know this to be the case; many physicians have come to me for help, and ninety-nine per cent. of them explained to me that their use of drugs was the direct outgrowth of their ignorance. If the man who practises medicine is unaware of what will bring about the habit, what can be expected of the medically uneducated citizen who is threatened by those in whom he has most confidence—his doctors?

The wide extent of the drug habit in this country has not been apparent. The man suffering from a physical disease either shows it or makes it known; the man suffering from the drug habit presents unfamiliar and unidentified symptoms, and far from being willing to make his affliction known, through shame he tries to conceal it at all hazards. Until legislation forced the victims of drug habits by hundreds into Bellevue Hospital in New York, this great institution rarely had one as a patient. The sufferer from tuberculosis would seek this hospital, feeling that there he might find measurable relief; the drug-user shunned it, for he was doubtful of receiving aid, and above all things he dreaded deprivation without relief. No man or woman will go to any institution for relief from the drug habit where the only treatment offered is that of enforced deprivation, for he or she knows perfectly well that deprivation means death. No human longing can compare in intensity with that of the drug-user for his drug. Unrelieved, he will let nothing stand between him and it; neither hunger, nakedness, starvation, arson, theft, nor murder will keep him from the substance that he craves. Clearly humanity must be protected against such an evil. And the physician must be saved from it, for saving him will fulfil in a large measure the demand for the protection of the public.

After the experience of the medical profession of New York State with the workings of the Boylan Act, it is scarcely probable that strong opposition to similar legislation will be made in other States. Even if other States delay in the enactment of right legislation, the Boylan Act may be considered not only a protective measure for the profession and the people of New York State, but it may be safely accepted as an educational pronouncement for the benefit of the medical profession everywhere. It establishes for the first time the danger-line.

HABITS THAT HANDICAP

HABITS THAT HANDICAP