Drug Addiction Crime or Disease?
Interim and Final Reports of the Joint Committee of the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association on Narcotic Drugs.
INTERIM REPORT
For the last half-century public authorities in the United States have been wrestling with the problem of controlling addiction to narcotic drugs. Since the twenties, legislation and enforcement policies have aimed at total repression, with criminal sanctions of notable severity attaching to every transaction connected with the non-medical use of drugs. Drug-law enforcement has become a major police activity of federal, state and local governments; the threat of long imprisonment, even of death penalties, hangs over not only the smuggler and the peddler, but the addict-victim of the illicit traffic.
Addiction to narcotic substances has been recognized as a health problem for a long time and in many different countries. It has also in our times and in our national community, emerged as a criminal law problem of distressing magnitude and persistency. The fields of medicine and law are thus equally affected, and the Joint Committee which offers this report has undertaken its assignment with enthusiasm at the prospect of uniting its parent organizations in a common effort centered in an area where the concerns of each overlap and largely coincide. If the Joint Committee can contribute something towards mutual enlightenment and ultimate agreement between the medical and legal professions regarding the drug problem, it may clear the way for desirable reforms. But regardless of the final outcome, its work to date has been highly gratifying to those engaged in it simply by virtue of its resounding success as an experiment in close cooperation between the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association.
The Joint Committee warmly acknowledges the participation of another