Narcotic
Drug Rules Are Made More Stringent. . . Physicians Cannot Now Prescribe Merely
to Relieve Suffering Caused from Lack of Drug
Washington, July 6—Drug addicts may not obtain narcotics on
physician’s prescriptions from lack of the drug, under stringent regulations
issued today by the bureau of internal revenue governing the quantity which may
be ordered by physicians. It was possible under the old regulations for a
physician to prescribe “more than is apparently needed to meet the needs of a
patient in the ordinary case,” as he stated on the prescription for the purpose
which the unusual quantity was to be used. This privilege is now revoked.
“The act of December 17, 1914, as amended by the act of February
24, 1919,” the new regulation states, “permits the furnishing of narcotic drugs
by means of prescription issued by a practitioner for legitimate medical uses,
but the supreme court has held that an order for morphine issued to a habitual
user thereof, not in the course of professional treatment, in an attempted cure
of the habit, but for the purpose of providing the user with morphine
sufficient to keep him comfortable by maintaining his customary use, is not a
prescription within the meaning of the act. In view of this decision, the
writer of such an order, the druggist who fills it and a person obtaining drugs
thereunder will all be regarded as guilty of violating the law.”
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