416  Number  and  Kind  of  Drug  Addicts.  {^dm***™™. 
negatived  by  the  exceptions  included  in  Section  6.  The  most  exact- 
ing dope  fiend  could  not  ask  for  a  larger  hole  in  the  law.  If  he  can 
get  an  unlimited  amount  of  his  favorite  drug  in  a  nostrum  form, 
anything  else  that  the  Harrison  or  any  other  law  may  or  may  not 
provide  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  him." 
As  has  been  pointed  out  before,2  some,  at  least,  of  these  state- 
ments are  not  based  on  reliable  data,  while  others,  having  the  elements 
of  truth,  are  misleading,  either  because  of  their  incompleteness  or 
because  of  the  partial  misstatement  of  fact.  While  it  is  unfortu- 
nately true  that  the  number  of  drug  addicts  in  the  United  States  is 
disgracefully  large,  it  does  not,  and  of  necessity  can  not,  even  ap- 
proximate the  maximum  that  has  been  stated. 
Practically  all  of  the  opium  and  coca  used  in  this  country  is 
imported  through  legitimate  channels,  and  because  of  the  com- 
paratively high  import  tax  considerable  care  is  exercised  to  insure 
the  reporting  and  recording  of  all  of  the  product  at  our  disposal,  so 
that  we  have  fairly  reliable  data  on  which  to  base  an  estimate  of  the 
amount  of  either  drug  that  is  available  for  all  purposes. 
Converting 'the  recorded  quantities  of  the  several  drugs  imported 
into  average  doses,  as  presented  in  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United 
States,  we  find  that  for  some  years  the  total  amount  of  these  drugs 
imported  has  been  fairly  uniform  and  will  aggregate  an  average  of 
approximately  2,500,000,000  doses  of  opium,  its  derivatives  and  alka- 
loids, and  325,000,000  doses  of  coca  leaves  and  cocaine.  These 
figures  serve  to  definitely  fix  the  amount  of  available  material,  and, 
quite  regardless  of  the  proportion  of  the  several  drugs  that  may  be 
used  legitimately  or  illegitimately,  the  sum-total  of  illegitimate  use 
cannot  well  exceed  the  sum-total  of  the  available  material. 
A  rather  interesting  source  of  information  regarding  the  actual 
number  and  kind  of  drug  addicts  is  available  through  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  Tennessee  anti-narcotic  law  of  1913.  Lucius  P.  Brown, 
the  State  Food  and  Drugs  Commissioner  of  Tennessee,  in  a  recent 
report 3  says  that  after  twelve  months  of  operation  there  were 
registered  in  the  State  of  Tennessee  under  the  provisions  of  the  anti- 
narcotic  law  2370  persons  of  all  ages  and  years  These  included  784, 
or  33.1  per  cent.,  males  and  1586,  or  66.9  per  cent.,  females. 
The  average  consumption  per  day  of  the  morphine  addicts  was 
8.5  grains,  or  approximately  1000  doses  each  month,  or  12,000  doses 
2  P.  H.  Rep.,  1914,  vol.  29,  p.  3180. 
3  Am.  J.  Public  Health,  1915,  vol.  5,  pp.  323  and  333. 
