Suchergebnisse

Pt.1. Food and drug legislation.--Pt.2. Experiences in food and drug enforcement.--Bibliography (p.201) ; Mode of access: Internet.

The punitive anti-addict policy embodied in our narcotics law has pushed the addict straight into the black market. The addict's inability to get to the doctor obviously furnishes the econ incentive that supports the thriving underworld traffic in drugs. Whatever impact the enforcement effort does have is felt most strongly not by the big-time narcotics profiteers, but by the addict himself. The modest effort to develop a Med treatment program for addicts by the US Public Health Service Hosp's for addicts at Lexington, Kentucky & Fort Worth, Texas has had only a limited success. All such efforts suffer from the general tenor of US narcotic policy which considers the addict more of a public enemy than a troubled person. By contrast the British policy allows the addict to be medically treated & doctors may legally supply the wanted narcotics at nominal cost to prevent the severity of the withdrawal symptoms. Generally speaking, addiction & underworld life are not closely connected in GB. Americans continue to accept the picture of the addict as a violent & ruthless degenerate. However, drug addicts ordinarily display relief rather than excitement when injected with the drug. All available evidence indicates that it is not the addiction itself, but the punitive approach which produces anti-soc behavior in addicts. An additional support for the official position regarding addicts has been the Med profession's failure to insist on its responsibility for their treatment. What is needed is an absolute reversal of our current att's & laws. An exp'al clinic through which to test the British approach should be instituted. V. D. Sanua.

The modification of attitudes and behavior by drugs both for scientific inquiry and therapy and control, constitutes an area of increasing concern to social scientists and policy-makers. In a theoretically integrated survey,1 the author explains some of the major dynamics and developments of psychoactive (and hence socioactive) drugs and comments upon the public issues involved in their use. Dr. Miller is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he is also Director of the Mental Health Research Institute.