- a Boggs

66h5 32nd Street, NeW.
Washington, D. C.
December 30, 1955

Dear Mr. Boggs:

I would like to submit for the record a statement about drug addiction.
I am 8 retired Public Health service officer and a psychiatrist of 0 years'
experience, a large part of which involves drug addiction. I was assigned
by the Public Health Service to study drug addiction in 1923, and later on
opened and operated for three years the Nareotic Hospital in Lexington,
Kentucky.

I am disturbed by the tragic consequences of propaganda that has
built in the public mind a drug problem far beyond actualities. Our drug
policy should be based on help for, and not persecution of, neurotic

or nervously unstable people who become drug addicts.

My studies have shown that the addict who repeatedly relapses is an
unstable person, not necessarily a criminal; but if a criminal, the criminality
precedes the addiction because the criminal, being unstable, is especially —
susceptible to addiction. |

Insofar as opium is concerned, every form of drug, including heroin,
reduces but does not completely abolish criminal impulses or tendencies. The
crimes, such as stealing, that so many opium addicts commit are committed
to get the drug for which they have acquired an impelling physical need.

But for this need there would be no crime. The need for controlling opium
addiction is great. It is a need to protest people from the distressing
‘slavery that these drugs bring about as well as from the mild impairment
of health they produce in some cases. ,

Many absurd statements, largely based on fiction, have been made about
the crime-producing qualities of marihuana. The fact is that it has about the
same effect in this regard as alcohol has when taken in excess. Marihuana
also produces disease, especially insanity, as alcohol does. It would cer~
tainly be a tregedy if we had in this country four million marihuana addicts
to add to the four million alcoholics instead of less than 10,000 that we now
have. .

Marihuana and opium, including the overrated heroin, should be con-
trolled, the one to prevent crime and preserve health, the other to protect
people from becoming unhappy slaves. But this control can be effected with-
out the severe sentences now imposed on addicts or on the small peddlers who
are usually addicts. These severe sentences are often tragically unjust.
Also, by compelling addicts to associate for long periods with undesirable
characters they make criminals out of honest people. Desirable restraint
could be accomplished by mild sentences that would not destroy character
and make future useful life impossible.
= 2=

As a background for comparison I introduce a few remarks about
aleoholism. The man who becomes a chronic alcoholic dees so for the same
psychological reasons that impel people to become chronic addicts to opiates,
including heroin and to marihuana. He suffers more from il] health than the
heroin addict who regularly gets his heroin and is decidedly more likely to
be a menace to society. His health and crime potentialities are about on
a par with those of the marihuana addict. It would be a very unfortunate —
thing if we should substitute our present kind and sensible handling of ,
alecholics for the type of treatment now meted out to addicts. Nevertheless,
the addicts can and should be restrained more than the alcoholics because |
marihvana and opium do not have the social usefulness that alcohol has for
so many millions of people, but the restraint of the addict should be based
on health and not on vindictive punishment for a weakness. Such a punishment —
x makes conditions worse than they otherwise would be. |

Very truly yours,

‘Lawrence Kolb, M.D.

Hon. Hale Boges

Subcommittee on Narcotic Drugs |
House Committee on Ways and Henne
House of Representatives

Washington 2s De Ce