THE  AMEEICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
DECEMBER,  igig    o  K 
EDITORIAL.  fyfa        fa  J$ 
THE   OBLIGATION   OF   PHARMACISTS  ^f^-^^TORT 
THE  PROHIBITION  ENACTMENTS. 
The  Eighteenth  Amendment  to  the  United  States  Constitution 
and  the  legal  enactments  for  the  enforcement  of  prohibition  are 
placing  great  responsibilities  upon  the  profession  of  medicine  and 
pharmacy.  Upon  the  former  devolves  the  duty  and  responsibility 
of  determining  when  and  where  and  to  what  extent  distilled  spirits 
and  wines  are  to  be  prescribed  as  necessary  remedial  agents.  We 
have  faith  that  the  professional  spirit,  actuating  a  very  large  per- 
centage of  the  medical  practitioners,  will  guide  them  in  the  proper 
discharge  of  their  share  of  the  responsibility.  Experience,  how- 
ever, has  taught  us  that  there  is  grave  danger  that  a  small  minority 
of  the  doctors  of  the  country  will  lend  themselves  to  prescribing 
alcoholic  beverages  under  the  guise  of  medicines  and  thus  sell  their 
professional  inheritance  for  a  mess  of  potage. 
Upon  the  pharmacists  will  devolve  the  double  duty,  as  the  sole 
purveyors  of  non-beverage  distilled  spirits  and  wines  at  retail,  to 
guard  against  infractions  of  the  laws  by  either  prescribers  or  users. 
It  is  difficult  to  see  how  they  are  going  to  escape  the  additional  re- 
sponsibility thus  placed  upon  them.  It  becomes  the  duty  of  each  to 
fully  maintain  the  honor  of  his  calling  and  to  sustain  not  only  the 
letter  but  in  his  acts  likewise  the  spirit  of  the  law. 
Doubtless  there  will  be  many  temptations  offered  and  the  devious 
ways  suggested  to  those  whose  moral  courage  is  not  strong  enough 
to  withstand  the  tests  may  lead  some  into  the  way  of  the  trans- 
gressor. The  penalties  provided  for  infractions  of  the  Volstead 
Act  are  surely  heavy  enough  to  deter  any  but  the  most  careless  or 
hardened  and  indifferent  from  intentional  violations. 
