BE AWE JAMES V. BENNETT ee | / » DIRECTOR @” UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE BUREAU OF PRISONS WASHINGTON 25 April 12, 1956 Dr. Laurence Kolb . 6645 =- 32nd Street, N. W. Washington 15, D. C. Dear Laurence: As I told you when I saw you up at the Cosmos Club I read over your very interesting paper on drug addiction the same day you sent it to me but because of the Parole Confer- ence and budget and a lot of other things I have just now been able to get around to comment upon it. In a word I think you have a very interesting, in- formative paper containing a lot of things that ought to be said. I have known something about drug addiction, as you know, over a number of years, but you opened my eyes for the first time to several aspects of the problem I had not pre- viously considered. For less well informed people I am sure it will be even more enlightening, Your introduction of the subject I think is excellent and the historical and other data you have included are most informative. The basic problem you face with the paper it seems to me is getting it into shorter compass, presenting your background data and marshalling your facts a little more logically. I know that means a lot of work but I am sure it is worth the effort. However, you may be so close to the subject yourself that you will need the help of some news- paper reporter or someone else to assist in presenting the data a little more succinctly and logically. Perhaps I could help you find someone of that kind if you wanted me to, There must also be some part-time editorial writers and others in the Public Health Service familiar with medical literature and terminology who might volunteer to cooperate. If I were going about recasting the article I think *I would follow your title "Narcotic Drugs -- Fact, Fiction and Hysteria", At the conclusion of my introductory material I would proceed to try to divide the subject into various / AAS Fett eacarremt altura Swlceltaemanieaiecn ae a headings and then discuss it. For example, my first heading might be "Extent Of the Drug Menace", Then under that heading I would start out by saying something to the effect that many of our daily papers would have us believe that the manhood of America is being debased, large numbers of our young women living in prostitution and our children debauched by narcotic drugs. Death sentences are proposed for drug peddlers. Every conceivable type of crime is attributed to morphine or mari- huana, etc. etc, I would then proceed to recite some of the material you have in your paper in rather succinct form, Then I would have the next heading something like "Facts Of History". Under this heading I would put all of the material you have describing the antiquity of drug addiction, its development and so on including the American experience, Then I would follow that with facts about the effect on human beings. Under this heading I would recite the data you have in your paper on this subject and stress your experience as a Doctor in dealing with this matter. Incidentally, you ought at the very beginning of your paper introduce yourself so that the audience will know who __you are and your background. You could say something like this: ~ "Many years before I thought of becoming':a commissioned officer in the U. S. Public Health Service and devoting most of my pro- fessional career to the study of drug addiction and the treat- ment of addicts, I sat listening to the wisdom of a group of elderly men etc." You could go on and recite some of the rest of it, but make it clear at the beginning of your paper that you are an expert. After you have discussed "the Mental and Physical Effect of Drugs" then you can go to questions of treatment of drug addicts and your suggestions with regard to it, differ- entiating at this point the difference between the punitive approach and the therapeutic methods, Later on you could get in something about the legal phases of the problem and I will be glad to help you with that. The data you have in your paper I think is to the point but I believe we could emphasize it and document your point of view if you care to have me do so if you want to recast your paper.