478  Alcohol:  Its  Relation  to  Science,  Etc.    {^'°'  •^°juiy^^92o: 
under  circumstances  which  would  justify  the  suspicion  that  they 
are  to  be  diverted  to  beverage  purposes. 
In  HberaUzing  the  original  House  draft  of  the  Volstead  Act 
for  the  purpose  of  providing  adequate  exemptions  for  the  drug  and 
allied  trades,  the  proviso  that  exempted  articles  must  be  "non- 
potable  and  incapable  of  being  used  for  beverage  purposes,"  was 
stricken  out,  and  the  phrase  "unfit  for  beverage  purposes"  was  sub- 
stituted. In  view  of  this  concession,  the  Congressional  leaders,  at 
the  instance  of  the  representatives  of  the  drug  trade,  inserted  as  a 
corollary  an  additional  provision,  in  part  as  follows: 
"Any  person  who  shall  knowingly  sell  any  of  the  articles  men- 
tioned in  paragraphs  a,  5,  c  and  d  of  this  section  for  beverage  pur- 
poses, or  any  extract  or  syrup  for  intoxicating  beverage  purposes, 
or  who  shall  sell  any  of  the  same  under  circumstances  from  which 
the  seller  might  reasonably  deduce  the  intention  of  the  purchaser 
to  use  them  for  such  purposes,  or  shall  sell  any  beverage  containing 
one-half  of  one  per  centum  or  more  of  alcohol  by  volume  in  which 
any  extract,  syrup  or  other  articles  is  used  as  an  ingredient,  shall 
be  subject  to  the  penalties  provided  in  Section  29  of  this  Title." 
While  this  provision  makes  it  incumbent  upon  every  house  in 
the  trade,  whether  manufacturer,  jobber  or  retailer,  to  use  the  utmost 
care  to  prevent  the  diversion  of  alcoholic  preparations  to  beverage 
uses,  in  my  opinion  it  imposes  a  special  obligation  upon  the  jobber, 
for  it  is  in  his  power  to  control  the  distribution  of  alcoholic  medicinal 
preparations,  toilet  articles,  etc.,  to  a  marked  degree.  As  illustrating 
my  own  view  of  the  jobbers'  duty  in  the  premises — a  view  which 
I  am  confident  has  been  quite  generally  accepted  throughout  the 
wholesale  drug  trade — I  will  quote  the  following  extract  from  an 
address  which  I  made  before  the  National  Wholesale  Druggists* 
Association  at  its  convention  held  in  New  Orleans  last  November : 
"Under  the  provisions  of  the  Volstead  Act  it  becomes  the  duty 
of  every  manufacturer  or  distributor  of  an  alcoholic  preparation 
which  might  be  diverted  to  beverage  purposes  to  carefully  scan 
every  order  for  such  goods  he  may  receive  and  to  refuse  to  sell  such 
articles  in  quantities  in  excess  of  what  he  believes  to  be  the  reasonable 
requirements  of  the  purchaser  for  strictly  legitimate  purposes. 
It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  lay  down  any  hard-and-fast  rule  with 
respect  to  the  quantities  of  various  articles  which  may  properly 
be  sold.  No  two  purchasers  necessarily  have  exactly  the  same  re- 
quirements, but  it  is  believed  that  every  jobber  is  in  position  to 
