Gradually since then I have gotten together, from my own work and that of others, and with some success attempted to interpret and explain and apply, what seemed to me facts about opiate addiction. To my mind and in my experience these facts offer a beacon-light of hope and assure ultimate rescue to a very large proportion if not most of those suffering from narcotic drug addiction-disease. It is well to state here that of late some of these facts have secured recognition in medical and lay authoritative announcement and literature. The Preliminary Report of a special investigating committee of the New York State Legislature is quoted from elsewhere in this book, and the report in June, 1919, of a special committee appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury speaks of, “the more or less general acceptance of the old theory that drug addiction is a vice or depraved taste, and not a disease, as held by modern investigators.” It is on account of “the more or less general acceptance of the old theory” that it is necessary in this place to discuss some of the tenets of that theory for the benefit of those whose interests or emergencies have not led them to investigation of and familiarity with the scientific and other writings on this subject of recent years. It has been demonstrated to be a fact that description of narcotic drug addiction as “habit,” “vice,” “morbid appetite,” etc., absolutely fails to give any competent conception of its true characteristics, and clinical and physical phenomena. A large majority of opiate users are gravely wronged in a wide-spread opinion still prevalent. This opinion, as previously outlined, is that chronic opiate addiction is a morbid habit; a perverted appetite; a vice; that only he who is mentally or morally defective will allow it to get a hold upon him; and that its main and characterizing manifestations are those of mental, physical and moral degeneration. Opiate addicts are supposed to have irrevocably lost their self-respect, their moral natures and their physical stamina. They are still painted by many, as inevitable liars, full of deceit, and absolutely untrustworthy--people who are supposed to use a dream and delight producing drug for the sensuous enjoyment it gives them, and who do not want to discontinue its use. They are thought of as physical, mental and moral cowards who, after realizing their deplorable condition, refuse to exert “will-power” enough to stop the administration of opiates. With these views I did my early work on this condition. On these hypotheses, trying to follow current available literature and teaching, I treated my patients for a considerable time with results which superficially interpreted seemed to corroborate both literature and teaching. Many of them managed to get their drugs even while in the institution, and practically all of them left uncured with but an exceedingly small number of possible exceptions.