The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1915-07-30
Old Remedies Under Ban of the
Harrison Law.

AS a result of the working out of
the new Harrison Anti-Narcotic law
the days of the old-fashioned medical
remedies, the kind which our fathers
and our fathers fathers have been
purchasing for the old-fashioned
plain ailments of life from time i'm
memorial, have passed away. No long
| er is it possible to hand bottle over
the counter of the corner drug store
and have it filled with Squibb's mix
ture, Dover's powder and laudanum
| The enactment of the Harrison Anti
..arcotic law has killed the custom.
These are not the only hardships
realized by persons who are frequent
ly under the necessity of taking med
icine. A hundred and one other mix
lures, in both tincture and tabler
form, usually considered harmless,
| can now be purchased only by presen-
tation of a specially systematized ply
sician's blank containing in addition
to the prescription the name and ad-
dress of the physician, his registered
| number and the date on which the
prescription was written. When the
quantity so obtained is used up by
the patient he cannot, as in the days
of yore, simply go back to the same
druggist and by presenting his vial
or box receive fresh supply. For
every fresh supply new prescription
must be made out.
This new system, besides giving the
patient an extra doctors charge to
pay for every prescription, is also
having its effect upon the druggist.
Hitherto the filing of prescription at
drug store generally meant series
of at least four or five refillings. The
fact that the druggist held the pre-
scription made it necessary for the
patient to return to him for other
amounts. Now that new prescrip-
ton must be presented each time the
druggist nearest the doctors office
where it is made out is likely to get
the filling of it.
When winter time rolls around again
and the season of hacking coughs re-
opens still larger number of persons
will become conscious of the new re-
strictions. Many of the old remedies,
such as terpin hydrate, coryza and
chlorodyne, are on the taboo list. The
one old-fashioned remedy that stands
untouched by the law is paregoric.
The user of this pain killer may get as
much as he pleases or as much as the
Judgment of the druggist allows him to
have. All narcotics that contain two
grains of opium are affected by the law
but paragoric, containing but | 9-1O
grains, just comes within the law.
Druggists say that this drug is occord-
ingly taking the place of the stronger
ones with a great many of those adj
dicted to the drug habit.
During the weeks following the en-
forcement of the new law these drug
fends came to the drug stores in
droves, with their much-belabeled bot
ties, asking for paregoric. The de-
sire for it was so apparent that the
higher class druggist refused to fill
such orders, so that since then the
army of paregoric consumers has evil
IDENTIFY drifted to those druggists found
to possess easier consciences.
A heavy punishment is in store for
all druggists who fail to live up to the
strictest observance of the details of
the law.
The demand for narcotics which be-
came so prominent in Frederick and
other cities soon after the Harrison
law went into effect appears to have
subsidized.