Narcotics research, rehabilitation, and treatment. Hearings, Ninety ...

678states, from Arnold Becker, public defender of Rockland county, and clinicalinstructor of psychiatry (Law), and head of the section on law, psychiatry andthe behavioral sciences within the Department of Psychiatry at ihe CornellMedical College.The malignancy of drug addiction is no less acute in 1971 than it was in 1961and 1951. The stricter controls, the more punitive measures, have not eveneffected a temporary turn-back in narcotic cases. Indeed, the law.s that have beenenacted, which are brought to play against those who are afflicted with narcoticaddiction or who abuse drugs to any extent, do nothing to strike at (the cause butmerely hits at the affect. Drug abusers in general, and drug addicts in particular,are no less prone to become what tliey are, because of the penal nature of thelaws that are enacted by the legislatures.It is diflScult to say why people, young and old, become drug abusers or drugaddicts. However, it has become quite obvious that the mere fact that drugl)ossession is prohibited by law, does not prevent those who wish to use drugsfrom purchasing and possessing any drug they de.sire.Whatever the drug users drives may be, peer pressure, psychological or sociologicalneed or the host of reasons that are now being explored by those in drugresearch, the fact is, people who want drugs, get drags, regardle.ss of how harshthe Penalties and punishments set by law.We are all aware of the debilitating affect of drugs on the mental andphysical health of drug abusers. We have also seen families destroyed, our citizensimrglarized, robbed, and in some cases, murdered by the insatiable hunger di'Ugaddiction produces. No one is more aware of the deadly affect of drug use thanthe drug user himself. I have personally spoken to hundreds of drug users andthey all realize they are traveling on a short road to death. But somehow, thethreat of prison, of young, sudden death means little to those v\-ho exi.st in thetwilight world of drugs.For him or her, the period of euphoria: the perio