I have been told that to require a consultation of physicians before the administration of a habit-forming drug would put upon the patient a financial burden which he should not be asked to bear. No fallacy could be more complete. There is in the United States to-day not one victim of the drug habit who, knowing as he does the intense suffering it entails, would not rather have given up ten years of his life and been forced to put a mortgage on his soul than to have had this habit fastened on him. Money? Money is nothing! The cost of a consultation is a small price to pay for the possible difference between life-long thralldom and free manhood or womanhood. And let me add in regard to the physician who objects to the legal establishment of a danger-point in drug administration that the physician who feels big enough to accept personally the responsibility of creating a drug habit is too small to be intrusted with that power. PERCENTAGE OF THOSE TO WHOM THE PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION OF DRUGS IS A NECESSITY The percentage of sick people to whom the administration of habit-forming drugs is a necessity for the preservation of life or comfort is smaller than is generally supposed even by the medical profession. When I was drafting my restrictive bill to be introduced into the New York legislature, I was asked by my lawyer to enumerate those physical troubles which demanded the constant use of habit-forming drugs. I found this to be impossible. I have known many instances in which to deprive of drugs patients suffering incurable illness would have been little less than criminal. This alone enabled them to live in comparative comfort. I have known of many cases of drug habit which have grown out of the administration of morphine for recurring troubles, such as renal colic. Such a disorder as this, however, should never give rise to a drug habit, because those suffering from it are subject to such brief periods of pain that a physician could administer the necessary drug without their knowledge. I have had many cases of women who, acquiring the habit through the administration of drugs at the time of their monthly periods, became habitual users, although each recurrence of the pain lasted only three or four days. When this problem is thoroughly understood, such cases will be impossible, for legislation will not only prevent the layman from securing habit-forming drugs, but will prevent the doctor from the indiscriminate administration of them. Of course the general reader may think this book merely a clever advertisement. In it I state that it is wrong to stop the use of morphine and alcohol unless the victims can be treated for the habit, and next I condemn doctors and sanatoriums for their useless methods of treatment, while lauding my own. Naturally, my reader may assume that my only motive is the selfish one of money.