In the 1920's prohibitionists victorious in banning alcohol then pressured the federal government to pursue an anti drug maintenance policy which shut down the narcotics clinics which had been set up by the individual states to treat drug addicts.
Although these Narcotic Maintenance Clinics lasted from 1912-1925 unfortunately they were often shut down after only a few months in business. The constant harassment of the clinics and their patients was led by a moralistic combination of bureaucratic cops and Religious Right Holy rollers hell bent on putting drug addicts and the rebellious doctors who treated them in prison.
Dr. Ratigan's Lonely Battle
But the real sentence imposed on him was a harsh seven years, plus a fine of $10,000. The prosecutor begged the judge not to release him on bond until he had surrendered his narcotic license and turned over his supply of drugs to the federal authorities, but the judge concluded reluctantly that he had no power to impose such a condition. In announcing the sentence he told the doctor that the crime of which he had been convicted was "one of the most, if not the most, hideous of crimes against society."
When released on bond pending his appeal, Ratigan told his friends: "I am not through, by a long way. I have the solution to the narcotics problem and I am carrying it out. I am proud of my conviction. If administering morphine to confirmed addicts is a crime, I am a criminal," During the appeal he sought to carry on, but now he was attacked from yet another quarter. The Washington State licensing authorities set a hearing to revoke his license to practice medicine, obliging him to bring an action in the local courts for an injunction to hold off the proposed revocation until his federal conviction had been finally disposed of.
Ratigan was not considered for parole, and even after he had served his full term there were obstacles to his release. First, he could not pay the fine which had been imposed, and thus he was held an additional thirty days; then, reportedly, he refused to sign a pauper's oath upon discharge, so his good-behavior credits were revoked and he was sent back to McNeil Island and detained there for two more months.
WHY HIGH LIFE DRUG ADDICTS ARE IN A PANIC
Their Friend Dr. Bishop, Who Says Opium Takers Should Not Be Treated as Criminals, Must Stand Trial Under Harrison Law Physicians Declare Humane Treatment of Victims Impossible Under This Act
The Washington Post
April 20 , 1920
IT WAS in the three years between the Behrman case and Dr. Linder's vindication that the Narcotics Division commenced the unworthy practice, carried on by federal authorities ever since, of recruiting informers and agents provocateurs from the addict community for money rewards or, not infrequently, for immunity from prosecution and an assured supply of drugs. Drug-enforcement officials have always denied the charge that their "special employees" are provided with drugs, but the consensus of all nonintimidated reports from the addict community, plus simple common sense, provide evidence to the contrary. The addict-turncoat is of little use to his law-enforcement masters if he is suffering withdrawal symptoms, so he must have his periodic "fixes" regularly one way or the other, either with drugs from seized supplies or else by the criminal act of purchasing in virtual partnership with the enforcement agents.
Narcotic clinics were intended to deal with addicts who could no longer buy opiate or cocaine legally from local pharmacies. The first in the United States was opened in 1912 by the city of Jacksonville, Florida, where Dr's. Provided both opiates and cocaine to men and women of all races. Other clinics followed especially after the Treasury Department, in enforcement of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act started prosecuting Medical Doctors who treated drug addicts who were ashamed to publicly register as a Narcotics user.
JAILING THE HEALERS AND THE SICK
by RUFUS B. KING
YALE Law Journal 1953
Our grievous error was in allowing the narcotics addict to be pushed out of society and relegated to the criminal community. He isn't a criminal. He never has been. And nobody looked on him as such until the furious blitzkrieg launched around 1918 in connection with the enforcement of the Harrison Act. That Act was a tax measure, designed and intended to bring the domestic traffic in narcotics into the open under a licensing system, so that the sloppy dispensing practices of the day could be checked. It said nothing about "addicts" (partly because the word had not achieved its wide current usage), and specifically exempted the "patient" in bona fide doctor-patient relationships. Narcotics-users were "sufferers" or "patients" in those days; they could and did get relief from any reputable medical practitioner, and there is not the slightest suggestion that Congress intended to change this-beyond cutting off the disreputable "pushers" who were thriving outside the medical profession and along its peripheries.
A series of about 44 clinics were eventually established all over the United States. Only Registered addicts were legally permitted to be treated by physicians would provide them with maintenance dosages of the drug in which they were addicted. In New York City, the Health Department provided opiates, cocaine , morphine, and heroin when it opened a clinic at the departmental headquarters. This clinic provided these drugs with a goal of eventual detoxification and rehabilitation. About 7,500 NYC drug addicts registered and received their drug of choice in dosages gradually decreased over a period of time. Before their demise, the clinics treated a relatively large number of addicts.
Armed with fresh Supreme Court decisions of March 1919, the Treasury Department started to close down the clinics, along with making threats to prosecute the physicians who ran them. The clinic that stayed in operation the longest was Dr. Willis Butler's of Shreveport , Louisiana and it last for only 4 years.
The federal government wanted to get into the question of what constitutes medical treatment which had been a state not a federal concern. Gradually the clinics were closed; the last one was shut down in 1925 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Most functioned quite responsibly with wide spread community support. Yet all were closed by the government who used bulling tactics reminiscent of todays mean spirited treatment of medical marijuana clinics to discourage the operations.
The demise of the clinics left the drug addicts with no other choice but to turn to a brand new figure on the scene which was the drug pushers who quickly replaced the legal clinics with the black market narcotics that has been with us ever since. The government created the pusher by preventing physicians from treating drug addicts. The sympathetic physicians who continued to treat addicts with maintenance doses were routinely arrested and imprisoned by our misguided government.
After 150 years of furious Drug Warrior agitation the situation regarding drug use in the United States is far worse today than before it started. Consequently there exists much hopeless frustration as drug war fear and hysteria continues to mount due to an endless barrage of lying propaganda. The Government is obviously unable and some claim intentionally unwilling to halt the endless flow of drugs being consumed by millions of Americans on a daily basis. Drug use in moderation is less harmful than excessive drinking. The use of alcohol is demonstrably more dangerous to the individual than marijuana and even Ecstasy.
Anyway you want to look at it the Federal obsession with using criminal law enforcement has proved to be a very costly disaster. Alcoholics and Drug Addicts are both blameless victims of a terrible illness that they have no control over. Sadly our government sends these poor souls to prison then upon their release they are thrown aside and trampled on. The failed and inhumane war on drugs is a terrible indictment on our society. Sometimes I feel like I will lose my soul if I stand by and watch this evil without saying something. The only solution is to shift the details of such matters from the field of criminal justice to the field of health.
A Trillion Dollar Drug War along with a 4 billion dollar a year urine testing business this is a waste of our money as well as an unwarranted intrusion into our personal lives. These drug warriors are the biggest losers in history they think by merely locking up millions of drug users that they will stop the worldwide narcotics trade. This is as dumb as thinking that the bootlegging MAFIA under Al Capone could have been destroyed by arresting drunks on Skid Row. Yet it obviously didn't have to be this way. We once had a drug maintenance program that worked but was destroyed by the moralizers and bureaucratic drug warriors that still dominate our government.