New-York tribune., 1919-02-18

HereUith is presented the sirth
Of series of articles on police
management and efficiency By for
mer Police Commissioner Arthur
Woods. The fifth 1cos published IN
The Tribune yesterday. The sea-
enth aoiU appear IN to-morro1D's
Tribune.
By Arthur Woods,
Former Police Commissioner Of Ne1o
Yorl; City
The laws that have been enacted in
Washington and by state legislatures
for the purpose OF suppressing and con-
trolling the drug evil have been more or
less successful. They have been sue
cessful in that the whole thing is now
against the law; they have been un-
successful in that no appreciable prog
ress has been made in reducing the
number of victims.
From a medical or reformatory point
of view these cases arc most difficult to
tainly have had effect, but the effect is
a physical ore only, having as its pur-
pose such a cleansing OF the human
system as shall remove the craving for
the drug which rendered the patient
powerless to resist it,
The treatment does not provide
cleansing Of the victims moral nature;
it does not inject stitfening into the
backbone; it does not furnish new &C
quaintances or new surroundings for
the patient racked by both the disease
and its cure, or new environment
which shall give him different out
look on life from what he had before.
He is "cured," but he is not made
stronger to resist the temptation he
yielded to before, and from force of
circumstances he probably will go back
to live under the same conditions which
failed to prevent his falling before.
Our experience seems to indicate that
in order to convert a drug user INTO
healthy citizen again you must have
first, deep desire on his part to shake
life out of him. then you must
help him along by medical treatment
Of some kind, with occasional stimula-
ton and nourishment, until he physi-
cally is free of the clutch of the drug;
and after this-well, it is really here
that the actual "cure" begins, and this
beginning is not matter Of admins
tering drugs or putting behind barred
doors; it is a matter of an individuals
adjusting himself to his environment,
by good fortune OF by his own perse
verancc or by the help of friends-it
does not matter which-adj djusting him
self so that he can go ahead, continue
his life without enslavcment For it Is
pure state of slavery that he is in
while the drug is his master, while he
cannot get away from it. while he has
to obey its behest at any cost and re-
gardess of how it may violate his prin
ciples Of life. 1t is a far more genuine
case of slavery than existed between
the Southern planter and his human
chattels.
In the long run it is losing game to
try to meet this question as we are
now trying. State laws are weak, be-
cause it is so easy to get over the bor
der into another state. The govern
ment regulatory laws have been help
full and have accomplished q certain
amount of good, but all our laws aud
all our regulations have fallen so far
short of stamping out the drug traffic
that we cannot for a moment rest sat
isfied with the present methods. We
believe that there is no effective way
Of coping with the evil except by dras-
tic Federal legislation, which absolute
ly prohibits; and what it does not pro
hibit it monopolizes. If no drug could
come into the country or be made in
the country. except as brought in or
manufactured by the government, and
then be distributed by careful system
OF licenses, so that it would surely fall
into the hands only of reputable doc
tors, we should come pretty close to
shutting off the source of supply and
we could then begin to try to accom-
plish the "cure" of the victims who are
now among us, without being oppressed
by the gloomy thought that for every
one patient cured probably a dozen
more had fallen victims. Nothing will
answer short of absolute prohibition,
and with human nature as it is there
is no way that prohibition can be ac-
compllshed except by the strong arm of
the government.
Warning Is Issued
We are told that drastic action of
this kind would be unconstitutional. If
this is so, if absolute Federal control
Of habit-forming drugs cannot be as
sumed by the Federal government, it is
certainly time that the country should
be apprised of the situation and should
realize that we have this eager, insid
ious, death dealing disease sneakng
and stealing about IN our midst cor
rupting our boys and girls, making
them slaves to its malicious will, de-
bauching their bodies and their souls
driving them to crime, to unnatural
vice, and making them in turn its own
missionaries of destruction
If we are right in sizing up the
character and extent Of the evil, the
difficulty of cure, the frghtfu effect of
the habit once achieved, and if we are
further right in concluding as a re-
suit Of the most earnest effort to battle
with this dragon under existing laws
that there is no way to subdue it ex-
cept through Federal monopoly and
control then we can arrive at no other
conclusion than that if the Constitu-
tion will not permit this there must
be remedial action by those that have
power
Copyright by Princeton Press; published by arrange
mcnt With Twenty first Century Press