Habits that Handicap: The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the RemedyTowns, Charles Barnes
Science
Habits that Handicap: The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco, and the Remedy
Towns, Charles Barnes
Alcoholism; Opium abuse -- United States; Tobacco use
The experience that the medical profession has already had in New York
State as the result of prohibitive legislation indicates the many problems
that arise immediately after the drug is put beyond the reach of those
who have acquired the habit. It is only natural that the unscrupulous
should seek to take advantage of the opportunities created by this
situation. Without proper treatment, an habitual drug-user cannot endure
the agony of deprivation until a definite physiological change has
occurred; so that unless the medical profession is informed of this fact,
and the community at large is provided with facilities for the
administration of the required treatment, it is almost inevitable that
restrictive measures will be followed immediately by the victimization of
the unfortunate by the unscrupulous. One detail of the peril to society
which may accrue from a general cessation of the drug traffic without the
provision of proper facilities for the care of those who have been its
victims is that those who are accustomed to drugs, on being suddenly
deprived of them, almost invariably turn to alcohol for stimulation and,
without being the least relieved of the drug habit, with abnormal speed
become alcoholics. Modern society presents few spectacles of suffering
more acute than that endured by the drunken drug-fiend. Few persons,
moreover, are so dangerous to its welfare.
MEDICAL ETHICS
Constantly I must lay emphasis upon the responsibility of the physician in
regard to drug habits. This phase of the subject must be an ever-recurring
one, because the whole unpleasant situation has grown out of medical
ignorance. While treatment for drug-users is at last making headway, for a
long time experimentation had no chance save with a small number of
broad-minded and bright-minded doctors who were able to shake off the
shackles that held the less intelligent members of their profession.
When I made public the formulas of my treatment, I did not understand this
phase of medical ethics. I assumed that certain dangers might arise from
the probable activities of the omnipresent medical faker, who without any
genuine effort to administer my treatment properly would advertise it
widely, and thus victimize the innocent. I also assumed that the medical
profession would eagerly grasp the idea, put the treatment into operation,
to their own benefit and that of the world at large, and by the very
beneficence of their work far more than offset the harm the charlatans
would do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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