open to inspection whenever an accounting is demanded,
consequently any leak can be instantly accounted for. This Harrison Act
is as comprehensive and as nearly perfect as possible, yet it does not
cover the situation. By this means, violations can be detected, whether
on the part of an unscrupulous physician or druggist, or even the
wholesale house, but these violations are only occasional. The root of
the evil remains untouched.

At one time, it was believed that carelessness on the part of the
physician was chiefly responsible for creating drug addicts, but the
recent campaign against violators of the Harrison Act seems to have
completely exonerated him of this charge. For one patient who becomes a
drug addict while under a doctor's care, through the accidental misuse
of morphia, there are a hundred who form the habit through other ways.
It is not the occasional, accidental victim, given morphia for the
relief of pain, which is creating our thousands of drug users. It is
not the occasional unscrupulous physician who is responsible. If this
was all, we could easily cope with these unwitting abuses, or even
deliberate instances of misuse. But the question goes deeper than this.

The Opium Monopoly was not established for any humane or altruistic
purpose. It was not established to provide the medical profession with
a drug for the relief of pain, to ease the agony of the injured and
wounded, or to calm the last days of those dying with an incurable
disease. This, which may be called the legitimate use of opium, is not
the object of the Opium Monopoly. Used only in this manner, there would
be no money in it. It is only when opium is produced in quantities far
in excess of the legitimate needs of the world that it becomes worth
while--to the Opium Monopoly. That Monopoly was established not to
relieve pain and suffering, but with the deliberate intention of
creating pain and suffering, by creating drug victims by the thousand.
It is these hundreds of thousands of customers that are profitable. The
menace to America lies in the large amounts of opium which are smuggled
into the country for this purpose. Boys and girls of sixteen and
seventeen first acquire this habit through curiosity, through
association with what they call "bad company," peddlers who first offer
it free, as a gift, well knowing that after a few doses the fatal habit
will be formed. Where do these vendors obtain their supplies?

The daily papers often c