MORPHINE CURE:
Figure 5:
QUESTIONABLE CURE FOR MORPHINE ADDICTION:
The Following is taken directly from: Farmers Bulletin 393; an official U.S. Government Bulletin:[2]
"DRUG-ADDICTION TREATMENTS. [pp16]
. . . . The craving for the drug, with rare exception, cannot be controlled or overcome as long as the drug is obtainable.
There are at present [1910] "mail order express treatments" for all kinds of drug addiction. All correspondence and transactions take place through the mails except the sending of the "dope" itself. It is usually represented by the exploiter that the habit can be successfully treated at home, by the particular treatment he is interested in, and its composition is a profound secret, known to him alone. As a rule, these treatments are composed of well-known drugs. In most instances they contain the very drug or drugs for which the treatment is advertised and sold. For example, one physician furnished a treatment to a supposed morphin addict containing, according to his own statement, 22 grains of morphin to the fluid ounce, and in addition 4 -minims of fluid extract of cannabis indica in the same amount (see fig. 5)".
FIG. 5.-TYPICAL DRUG-ADDICTION CURES.
Upper Label: No. 2 For L.F. Kay , Alcohol 12.1 % , Morphine 22 grains to the Fluid Once. Cannabis Indica Fluid Extract 4 minims. Together with other ingredients.
Lower Label: When you open this bottle order your next month's treatment in order to avoid any break. [Those parts underlined are handwritten.]
Here are the facts as the author sees them. First, if the allegations are true (and we have no reason to believe that they were not), an unscrupulous Doctor is/was selling a cure/treatment for morphine addiction -- WHICH IN FACT -- contained lots and lots of morphine. And I can assure you, twenty-two grains (per fluid oz.) is quite a lot. Thus, whether or not, Cannabis was one of the ingredients becomes irrelevant. The issue (again, at least as this author sees it) is fraud or at least fraudulent advertisement.
For this reason, we must acknowledge that this product (assuming that it indeed existed)[4] was in fact, a Quack Product.
[2] -- U.S. Department of agriculture -- Farmers Bulletin 393. "Habit-Forming Agents: Their Indiscriminate Sale And Use A Menace To The Public Welfare," by H.W. Wiley.
[4] Because this product was (essentially) a home remedy and not a branded product, thus making it all but impossible to track down. Plus the circumstances under which the author of the bulletin left his governmental post, brings some doubt into play.
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