While every effort should be exerted to determine the best lines of treatment, meanwhile there is a great deal which should be done in other directions. Let the medical profession help in bringing about better understanding of addiction—first, of course, learning this themselves. Until the addict can be offered rational treatment, the profession should do what it can in making the lives of addicts less unbearable by removing from the public mind some of the gross misconceptions concerning addiction, seeing to it, especially, that these unfortunates are not stigmatized as “morphine fiends” and that they are given the means of obtaining, without risk and hardship and almost prohibitive cost, the supply of their drug which, until they are cured, is to them as necessary as the air they breathe.
But the finding of a real cure or treatment—not necessarily specific, not a thing to be applied indiscriminately in every case, but a rational method of handling addiction as other well known diseases are handled—is the great aim, or, if it be that sufficient is already known by some men in the profession as to the rational handling of addicts, let these men be found and their services subsidized by the government and used to the fullest extent, in teaching others, and these still others, until there is built up a system extending over the entire country, capable and equipped for giving to every addict the opportunity for cure. This is a crying need in our country today. Surely there must be somewhere recognition of this fact and resources enough to make it possible for this need to be supplied.
A Plea for the Broader Consideration of Narcotic Drug Addiction by the Medical Profession
By a Practicing Physician Who Has Met the Problem in His Own Family
In view of a recent experience of mine in seeking intelligent medical help for a near relative whom I learned was a narcotic drug addict, I take pleasure in recounting experiences of the past few months in the handling of such a case, and in calling attention to the conditions which my investigations have shown me to exist in our profession.
My line of professional activity had not brought me knowingly into touch with narcotic drug addiction, and I entertained the prevailing medical opinions in regard to it.
About five months ago I received a letter couched in apologetic language from a practitioner in another state informing me that a younger brother of mine had been under his care for a number of days suffering from withdrawal symptoms occasioned by inability to purchase morphine, and advising me to place him in some institution where he could be restrained.
I immediately began asking my colleagues where I could send such a case, and was amazed at the general lack of knowledge in regard to and sympathy for these unfortunates. In truth no one could point out a single institution where such a patient could be sent with any hope that he might be handled in a humane and intelligent manner.
My investigations of the institutions they suggested showed this to be the fact.