“On the other hand it is apparent from this testimony that public consumption of narcotic drugs has increased to an alarming extent. The inevitable conclusion is that the unfortunate addict has been forced to and does obtain his supply illegally. “This condition arises very largely from the fact that many physicians and pharmacists, either through misunderstanding of the law or the true nature of the addict’s disease, have refused to prescribe or dispense narcotic drugs to the sufferer. “Your Committee contends that any member of the medical or pharmaceutical professions who refuses either to prescribe or to dispense narcotic drugs to the honest addict to alleviate the suffering and pain occasioned by lack of narcotics is not living up to the high standards of humanity and intelligence established by these great professions.” CHAPTER IX SOME COMMENTS UPON THE LEGITIMATE USE OF NARCOTICS IN PEACE AND WAR Before commenting upon the legitimate use of narcotics, it is desirable to emphasize again that the term “narcotics” as used in this volume refers particularly to the preparations and derivatives of opium, because as the term “narcotics” has come to be used it is synonymous in the minds of many with “habit-forming drugs,” a phrase often loosely used and grouping under its title a number of drugs of widely dissimilar action and properties. Although many of these drugs have narcotic properties, their action upon the human body is in many respects totally unlike the action of the opiates themselves. Also the condition resulting from their prolonged and continuous administration is an entirely different condition clinically and physiologically from that manifested in the case of opiate addiction-disease. The problems associated with the use of alcohol, cocaine, chloral, cannabis, the various coal tars, etc., differ from each other and all of them are, in their basic medical principles, of an entirely different character from the problems associated with the use of opiates. As has been previously stated, it has not yet been demonstrated that any of them form the basis for an addiction-disease mechanism such as clinical study and laboratory experiment seem to demonstrate in opiate addiction-disease. In considering legitimate as well as illegitimate use of opiates, therefore, it is important not to confuse them with the drugs above mentioned and to be sure that in the mind of the reader there shall not exist any lingering impression that attributes popularly supposed to be associated with so-called “habit-forming drugs” are of necessity displayed in the opiate group.