Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
July,  1920.  i 
Editorial. 
435 
-dealing  in  intoxicating  liquors  for  beverage  purposes.  It  is  in- 
conceivable that  anywhere  in  these  United  States,  it  should  not  be 
recognized  that  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  prohibited  the  manu- 
facture, sale,  transportation,  importation  or  exportation  of  intoxi- 
cating liquors;  that  this  and  the  Enforcement  Act  have  outlawed 
"the  liquor  business."  It  is  incomprehensible  that  a  deliberative 
body,  such  as  a  pharmaceutical  association,  especially  in  Missouri, 
is  supposed  to  be,  would  now  resolute  about  a  business  that  the 
will  of  the  people  and  the  laws  of  the  land  had  outlawed  and  even 
more  so  that  they  would  even  suggest  that  such  a  disreputable 
business  was  to  be  by  the  * 'Government"  "wished"  ''upon  the  retail 
druggist." 
The  Volstead  Act  recognizes  that  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors 
is  necessary  for  the  extraction,  solution  and  preservation  of  medicinal 
preparations  and  rightly  provides  the  means  by  which  the  druggists 
may  obtain  the  supplies  required  for  such  uses.  Further,  that  at 
times,  certain  distilled  spirits  and  wines  are  considered  by  the  at- 
tending physician  as  a  therapeutic  necessity  and  it  very  carefully 
prescribes  methods  by  which  the  physician  may  issue  prescriptions 
for  these  in  limited  quantities  and  then  very  rightly  considering  that 
they  are  medicines  directs  that  these  shall  he  filled  only  through  a  pharma- 
cist '  'duly  licensed  under  the  laws  of  his  State  to  compound  and  dispense 
medicine  prescribed  by  a  duly  licensed  physician."  Is  it  not  the  legiti- 
mate duty  of  the  licensed  pharmacist  and  of  no  one  else  to  dispense 
medicines?  Is  not  this  the  very  basic  principle  that  has  justified 
the  enactment  of  pharmacy  laws  for  the  protection  of  the  public 
against  promiscuous  and  incompetent  dispensing? 
This  is  an  irrefutable  statement  of  the  law  and  the  facts  and  no 
perversion  will  justify  an  assertion  or  even  an  intimation  that  "the 
Government"  is  desirous  of  providing  for  a  continuation  of  "the 
liquor  business"  or  of  "wishing  it  upon  the  retail  druggist." 
The  second  clause  the  resolve  "in  the  interest  of  law  enforce- 
ment," is  ambiguous  and  contradictory  and  inconsistent  in  that, 
instead  of  upholding  the  law  and  its  enforcement  by  the  procedure 
prescribed,  it  proposes  an  entirely  different  method  than  that  pro- 
vided for.  In  the  language  of  our  title,  "The  end  of  the  Law  is 
obedience."  It  is  the  plain  duty  of  every  citizen  of  this  Country 
to  respect  and  obey  the  laws.  The  question  here  is  "law  enforce- 
ment" as  stated  and  it  does  not  minimize  the  matter  in  the  least  to 
