The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1914-07-16

nounced stimulation and gives it's adj
diets a sense of hilaration attained by
few, if any other drugs.
The use of both these things is, as
a matter of course, very harmful to
the persons who use them. In fact
more so than is whiskey, with the adj
ded danger that once the habit of US
ing opium or it's compounds is fasten-
ed on a man he cannot stop it without
medical treatment, because changes
are produced in the body which de-
mand an increasing dose of the drug.
The last end of that person is appar-
emily mental, moral and physical
death. The extent of the addiction to
narcotic drugs is alarming. Conser-
yative persons put it at from one to
two per cent of the whole population;
If that is the case, we have in Tennes-
see in the neighborhOod of $4,000 of
these poor people. The person who
uses opium compounds, morphine,
ETC., ought to be classed as a sick man
who needs help to get away from his
trouble and is to be pitied and helped
rather than blamed. The Tennessee
law against these narcotics forbids
their indiscrimanate sale and allows
it only on the prescription of a physi-
clan or by a physician in the course
of his practice. 1t does not allow the
indiscriminate refilling of prescrip-
tons. Because the sudden taking
away of the drug from a patient is
liable to produce very serious conse-
quences, and in many cases. death or
insanity, the pure food and drug in
spector, and the secretary of the state
board of health, authorized, under the
law, to make rules and regulations
for its enforcement, allow the refill
ing OF prescriptions to persons who
are now addicted to the use of the
drug under sworn stateme ats from
their physicians as to the amount
used and the necessity for it. These
addicts are registered by the depart
ment and permits given them to have
prescriptions refille1 for certain
amount, for q greater or less length |
of time. 1t is the aim of the depart
ment to always reduce the amount of |
the drug and to thereby help the pa
tient to cure himself. 1t is hardly |
necessary to point out the misery and |
suffering entailed on these patients by |
the use of the drug, and, in a greater
degree if anything, the same misery |
and suffering is afflicted on their rela- |
tives and friends. Anything which |
will help to free our state of this fear |
full curse is to be encour iged. For
one thing, while it appears that this |
law is Sufficient to prevent the forma-
ton of new addicts to the drug, there
is no means taken of freeing those
persons who now have the disease |
from its clutches. There ought to be |
some means, provided, either at state,
county or city expense. by which they
can be treated for the disease and
thereby be restored to their useful
ness as citizens and as members of
society And there ought to be more
lenient judgment of these poor peo-
pie: it is most often not their fault
that they have this trouble. Unfor-
physicians formerly prescrib-
ed it much more freely than is now
the case, through ignorance chiefly, of
its effects. The. medical profession
now is thoroughly aroused to the dan
ger of the disease and are almost a
unit in supporting the enforcement of
The law against it. We will have a
good deal more to say about drug adj
1inti0nc in tho oottrca 0f fba.o Hobo &c, l.,