Prevention and Education
Our Committee took the position that while treatment facilities were urgently needed, it was imperative that there be developed a program that would place major emphasis on prevention.   We were unwilling to accept use of narcotics by teen-age youth as a part of our urban community living.   In March of 1951 we sought assistance from United States Commissioner of Narcotics, Harry J. Anlinger, in the development of a program of education.   We were advised by Mr. Anslinger that the immediate need in New York was not education, but "a quarantine ordinance which would confine these users in a controlled ward of the city hospitals until they are pronounced cured by medical authorities.   As long as they are on the streets they spread addiction and "contaminate others like a person who has smallpox.   Association with other addicts is the chief [page 21] cause of drug addiction.”   The Commissioner stated that an educational program would only arouse curiosity among young people and stimulate them to experiment with narcotic drugs.

On March 2, Commissioner Anslinger replied as follows:

"Dear Mr. Baldwin: "I have your letter dated February 27, 1951, in relation to the increase in the number of adolescent drug users in New York City and note that you are considering launching a campaign of public information and direct education on the narcotics problem in the junior and senior high schools.

"I have just returned from Detroit where we conducted a number of raids involving narcotic peddlers who were selling drugs to teen-age hoodlums.   There were about 75 persons under 21 who testified before the Grand Jury, and I understand that in all but a few cases the young people were not going to school of any kind. In one or two cases, as soon as the addiction started, the pupil dropped out of school immediately.

"The heroin user must obtain between $6 and $15 a day to maintain addiction.   This amount is obtained through criminal activities, and it is therefore impossible for the youth to continue school attendance. . . . . . "The immediate need in New York is not education but a quarantine ordinance which would confine these users in a controlled ward of a city hospital until they are pronounced cured by medical authorities.   As long as they are on the streets they spread addiction and contaminate others like a person who has smallpox.   Association with other addicts is the chief cause of drug addiction.

"Another urgent need is the passage of the enclosed Amendment to the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act to provide minimum sentences of five years for second offenders who sell narcotics.

"These two actions will do more to curb addiction than an educational program, which will only arouse curiosity.   We find that most young people who have become addicted, acquired this evil habit not because of ignorance of consequences, but rather because they had learned too much about the effects of drugs.   When young people gather and talk about the horrors of narcotics, addiction usually follows because of the tendency to try it for a thrill.   Warning does not deter them, it merely places it in their thoughts.

"We have grave doubts as to the advisability of the course of action you are considering.
Very truly yours,

(Signed) H. J. ANSLINGER
U. S. Commissioner of Narcotics"

This letter represents the official attitude that has dominated this subject, and has resulted almost in its exclusion from educational analysis and attack.   It is similar to the kind of thinking which for years kept cancer, tuberculosis, or venereal disease out of public view.   Very frankly, in my opinion the Commissioner's arguments are specious and contrary to all of our evidence.

New York Times ---- May 10, 1949
DRUG ADDICT BAN PUZZLES DIRECTOR; Prize Canadian Documentary Film Withheld at Request of Narcotics Bureau
Robert Anderson, director of the prize-winning Canadian film, "Drug Addict," has arrived in New York, "amazed to learn," he said yesterday, that his film had become a cinema cause celebre.

Produced last year by the Canadian Film board in Ottawa, the film has been kept from showing in this country at the request of H.J. Anslinger, Commissioner of narcotics, Bureau of narcotics, United States Treasury Department.   The ban is not official, for the narcotics Bureau has no power to ban films, but a spokesman explained that the bureau opposed the film because “it contained scenes of addiction which tended to glamorize the drug habit and would do more harm than good.”

The United States Government made a “friendly request” of the Canadian Government that “Drug Addict” not be shown in this country, and Canada complied.   The New York office of the Canadian Film Board, in Rockefeller Center, has not distributed the film as it has its many other documentaries, which are in great demand by educational, religious, civic and welfare groups.

At the film board offices yesterday, Mr. Anderson, who is here for a few days to plan further pictures in his series of pioneer films, presenting a psychoanalytic interpretation of problems in neurosis, said that he did not think the film itself was important, but what mattered was its “fresh, productive approach to such problems as addiction and alcoholism, presenting the person in the light of being emotionally disturbed.”

He said he could see Commissioner Anslinger’s reason for not wanting the film shown commercially (a one-reel version of it is being shown commercially in Canada), but that he felt it was unfair “to block its use for educational, legal and medical groups.”

The film depicts graphically the methods of operating and habits of addicts and illicit distributions, and shows the addict not only as a criminal but as a mentally ill person.

Leading psychiatrists, sociologists and welfare groups have asked that it be shown to limited audiences in this country. The American Psychiatric Association at its annual convention in Montreal the end of this month is expected to take action after seeing the film.

One of those most active in campaigning for the showing of the film here is Dr. Alfred Lindesmith of the Department of Sociology, Indiana University, an authority in the field and author of “Opiate Addiction.”   He recently took a trip to Ottawa to talk to officials there and to see the film.

“It is the only honest film I know of on the subject,” he said.   “If we’re going to learn anything about drug addiction, it is important that the discussion of the subject be free.”

The film won a first prize in the recent Canadian Film Awards, in the non-theatrical group.