Your reviewer Ms. Satel has interpreted history from the
Prohibitionist slant when she writes ("Addicted to Abolition"): "At
the turn of the last century, unrestricted access to morphine, heroin
and cocaine led to a great wave of addiction in the U.S."

The "unrestricted access" and indeed, very large consumption of
narcotic drugs at that time was not a result of opium dens on every
corner, nor even a level of hard-core addiction such as we see today
in the inner cities.

It was due to the fact that the drugs, particularly morphine and
cocaine, were common constituents of widely sold patent medicines and
even contained in beverages such as Coca-Cola. That the presence of
the drugs was often not even indicated on the label undoubtedly led to
much accidental addiction. What was needed was not the fanaticism of
Prohibition, whose destructive legacy we are today still trying to
correct, but labeling laws, truth in advertising laws, and public
education on the use and misuse of medicinal products.

Peter Webster vignes@monaco.mc