A  October  Pi9i3m" }  Legislation  Relating  to  Poisons  and  Drugs.  443 
present  time  the  laws  relating  to  six  different  subjects  have  been 
compiled  and  published  in  the  form  of  Public  Health  Bulletins. 
One  of  these,  Bulletin  56,  "  Digest  of  Laws  and  Regulations  in 
Force  in  the  United  States  Relating  to  the  Possession,  Use,  Sale, 
and  Manufacture  of  Poisons  and  Habit-Forming  Drugs,"  is  of 
direct  interest  to  pharmacists  in  that  an  effort  has  been  made 
to  reflect  not  alone  the  laws  relating  to  the  manufacture  and  use 
of  poisons,  but  also  to  refer  in  outline,  at  least,  to  the  laws  regulat- 
ing the  practice  of  pharmacy  and  the  sale  of  poisons.  For  ready 
comparison,  the  requirements  under  the  several  laws  have  been 
compiled  in  the  form  of  tables  which  clearly  indicate  the  need  for 
careful  study  in  the  enactment  of  future  legislation  on  this  subject. 
To  keep  the  material  up  to  date,  the  recent  legislation  is  being 
compiled  and  published  in  Public  Health  Reports  and  in  this  way 
the  several  publications  are  constantly  available  as  works  of 
reference  to  all  who  may  be  interested. 
During  the  legislative  year  of  1912-1913,  the  legislatures  of 
some  42  states  were  in  session  and  the  resulting  laws  more  or  less 
directly  affecting  pharmacy  were  not  alone  numerous  but,  in  some 
instances  at  least,  also  far  reaching.  Among  the  more  radical  pieces 
of  legislation  are  the  Walker  cocaine  bill  in  New  York  and  the 
transfer  of  the  enforcement  of  the  drug  law  in  Ohio  from  the 
Board  of  Pharmacy  to  a  commission. 
Among  the  notable  failures  to  secure  desirable  and  evidently 
needed  legislation  a  good  illustration  is  to  be  found  in  Pennsylva- 
nia where  the  pharmacists  failed  to  secure  favorable  action  by  the 
Senate  on  a  bill  designed  to  codify  and  somewhat  elaborate  the 
present  laws  relating  to  the  practice  of  pharmacy.  Pharmacists 
also  failed  to  secure  the  approval  of  the  Governor  of  the  State 
for  an  antinarcotic  bill  that  had  passed  both  houses  of  the  legis- 
lature and  succeeded  in  defeating  a  bill  designed  to  prevent  the 
promiscuous  sale  of  corrosive  sublimate  in  tablet  form. 
The  successes  and  failures  of  the  past  legislative  year  evidence 
the  fact  that  many  of  the  measures  offered  were  hastily  and  carelessly 
drafted,  or  were  subsequently  so  amended  as  to  make  them  difficult 
of  enforcement.  Little  or  no  attention  appears  to  have  been  given 
to  the  need  for  greater  uniformity  in  legislation  relating  to  public 
health  matters  and  in  connection  with  habit-forming  drugs  ad- 
ditional inducements  have  been  placed  on  illicit  traffic. 
To  make  the  existing  legislation  effective  an  effort  should  be 
