THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
MARCH,  1920 
EDITORIAL. 
THE  RESPONSIBILITY  01^  PHARMACY  UNDER 
PROHIBITION  ENFORCEMENT. 
The  various  acts  of  national  legislation  leading  up  to  the  enact- 
ment of  prohibition  as  well  as  the  prohibition  enforcement  act, 
have  all  recognized  the  use  of  distilled  spirits  and  wines  as  medi- 
cines. The  Volstead  Act,  more  distinctly  than  its  predecessors, 
takes  cognizance  of  such  legitimate  use  of  alcoholic  liquors,  and 
attempts  to  provide  the  procedure  by  which  the  needs  of  the  public 
for  such  as  medicine  can  be  supplied. 
We  have  reason  to  believe  that  in  the  drafting  of  this  portion  of 
that  act  careful  consideration  was  given  to  this  subject  as  one  that 
under  the  existing  knowledge  and  status  of  the  practice  of  medicine 
must  be  provided  for  as  a  public  necessity.  In  the  exercise  of  its 
law-making  prerogative,  Congress  very  properly  determined  that 
the  use  of  distilled  spirits  and  wines  as  medicines  must  be  provided 
for  but  that  the  presci'ibing  and  dispensing  must  be  done  through 
the  proper  channels  of  professional  medical  practice  and  that  pro- 
tective measures  must  likewise  be  adopted  to  restrict  the  dispensing 
of  these  to  bona  fide  prescriptions. 
We  believe  that  the  Volstead  act  is  the  first  law  enacted  by  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  that  clearly  recognizes  that  pharmacy 
is  a  distinct  branch  of  medicine;  that  its  function  is  to  dispense  all 
medicines  and  that  dispensing,  even  of  alcoholic  liquors,  can  be 
controlled  through  the  profession  of  pharmacy.  This  is  a  principle 
for  which  pharmacists  have  been  contending  for  a  long  time  and  the 
importance  of  its  establishment  in  the  jurisprudence  cannot  now  be 
fully  estimated. 
President  LaWall,  in  his  presidential  address  before  the  American 
Pharmaceutical  Association,  considered  that  this  was  to  be  viewed 
