Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1911 — BLAME PHYSICIANS FOR GROWTH OF DOPE HABIT [ARTICLE]

BLAME PHYSICIANS FOR GROWTH OF DOPE HABIT

Druggists Say Prescriptions and Not Patent Medicines the Cause. New York.—Blame for the prevalence and growth of the morphine habit was placed on the shoulders of physicians, who prescribed the drug, at a meeting of druggists here tonight to protest against the recently enacted city ordinance prohibiting the sale at retail of any preparation containing morphine or its salts except upon a doctor's prescription. The ordinance is aimed primarily at paregoric and at stomach remedies, according to members of the board of health who were instrumental in obtaining its passage. Caswell Mayo, one of the druggists, said he had made a canvass by mail of several sanitariums and the replies convinced him 90 per cent, of the victims of drugs formed the habit as a result of using prescriptions given by physicians and only 8 per cent, from using proprietary medicines.