This part of the law which requires the recording of the name, age and residence of the addict should be repealed. The only effect of these provisions is to record the addict as what everybody considers a “dope fiend” or force him to go to the smugglers for his drug. He must either place his good name and social and economic position in constant jeopardy or in some way or other evade the law with its attendant penalty, and constant fear of detection. I should not be surprised if it finally develops to be the fact that a majority of decent sufferers from this condition have chosen the latter course as the lesser of evils. I am informed that the Health Department has recently issued monthly registration blanks to physicians, demanding, in addition to the name, age and residence of the addict, the date and amounts of each prescription together with other information as to the individual cases treated. This makes conditions still more obnoxious and unbearable. Furthermore, this action of the authorities of the Board of Health is unwarranted and illegal. There is nothing in the powers of the Board of Health which permits them such action, and such action is without any justification in the letter of the law or in any possible interpretation of the spirit and intent of the law. The data demanded were submitted to the Legislature as provisions in the law when the bill was being considered, and were rejected. The Health Department is usurping the powers of the Legislature, which it has no authority to do. The law plainly states what the physician shall report and the Board of Health has no power to require additional matters. Such action constitutes illegal interference with the rights of physician and patient as to matters of treatment and as to violation of professional confidence. It is my opinion that a narcotic addict might have grounds for legal procedure against a physician who furnished such information as the Health Department demands. Conditions in New York today, affecting the honest addict, constitute in effect persecution of the sick. It is bad enough to be afflicted with this disease. Agonizing as gall-stone attacks have been, the physical suffering from lack of morphine in an addict is worse. Added to this is the knowledge that your name is on file at Albany, and perhaps elsewhere, as an addict. You know that disclosure of your condition will ruin you and disgrace your family. You are potentially subject to leakage from those records and the attendant possibilities of blackmail and other persecution. Such conditions tend to force and undoubtedly have forced many innocent and honest addicts of good social and economic standing to become criminals by obtaining their necessary opiate medicine through illegal channels. Something certainly should be done to remedy existing conditions and existing laws. The great State of New York should not place its unfortunate sick in their present position. * * * * *