Am.  Jour.  Phaim.  ) 
October,  1903.  / 
The  Legislative  Year. 
467 
THE  LEGISLATIVE  YEAR.1 
By  Harry  B.  Mason. 
The  legislative  year  of  1902-3  in  pharmacy  has  been  full  of  in- 
terest, and  full  of  suggestion  also.  It  has  registered  a  distinct 
advance  in  the  enactment  of  a  number  of  laws  of  real  importance 
and  necessity,  and  as  usual  it  has  brought  forth  also  a  chaotic  mass 
of  impossible,  vicious  and  foolish  measures  which  would  have  been 
sad  commentaries  on  our  national  intelligence  had  they  not  failed  of 
passage.  No  fewer  than  ninety-eight  bills  were  introduced  in  the 
various  State  and  territorial  legislatures;  nineteen  of  these  found  a 
place  upon  the  statute  books  ;  and  it  is  extremely  fortunate  that  on 
the  whole  this  winnowing  process  selected  the  wheat  from  the  chaff 
with  sure  intelligence. 
Speaking  first  of  the  bills  which  became  law,  it  is  exceedingly 
gratifying,  in  view  of  the  threatening  spread  of  the  cocaine  evil,  that 
the  year  has  produced  four  cocaine  acts — those  of  Georgia,  Illinois, 
Pennsylvania  and  Texas.  Three  of  these  measures  contain  features 
which  render  them  decided  improvements  over  pre-existing  cocaine 
legislation.  The  Georgia  law  is  the  customary  one  limiting  the  sale 
of  cocaine  to  physicians'  prescriptions,  and  prohibiting  the  refilling 
of  these  prescriptions.  But  all  three  of  the  other  laws  go  further 
and  stop  up  a  leak  which  has  practically  nullified  the  cocaine  acts 
of  several  of  the  Southern  States :  they  prohibit  physicians  from 
giving  prescriptions  for  the  drug  to  habitues,  provide  quite  heavy 
penalties  for  violations,  and  in  one  instance  (the  Illinois  measure) 
declare  that  the  offending  person  shall  have  his  license  as  a  physi- 
cian revoked  upon  conviction  of  the  second  offense.  Moreover, 
recognizing  that  catarrh  snuffs  and  other  preparations  containing 
the  drug  are  fertile  causes  of  cocaine  addiction,  the  Illinois  act  by 
implication,  and  the  Pennsylvania  act  by  specific  statement,  place 
the  sale  of  these  articles  upon  exactly  the  same  basis  as  the  alkaloid 
itself.  The  Texas  measure  unfortunately  exempts  proprietary  prep- 
arations, and  it  differs  from  the  other  acts  also  in  throwing  its 
restrictions  around  the  sale,  not  of  cocaine  alone,  but  as  well  of 
morphine  and  opium.  Incidentally  it  may  be  remarked  that  the 
phraseology  of  the  Texas  enactment  is  unfortunately  such  that  the 
1  Read  at  the  fifty-first  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  held  at  Mackinac  Island,  Mich.,  August,  1903. 
