Mr. LARRICK. The concern of ethical pharmacists about the barbiturate problem has been expressed through their professional organizations and the boards of pharmacy in many States and has resulted in passage of laws designed to improve control. Unfortunately, despite these laws, State enforcement agencies do not have enough inspectors for effective enforcement. Some of the State enforcement officers develop leads to potential cases and then request our inspectors to help develop them for presentation in Federal court. They sometimes believe that the Federal courts give stiffer penalties than the State courts.

Other States prefer to use the fact of conviction in Federal court as a reason for suspending the license of a drugstore and its pharmacists. This is an additional penalty and should be a strong deterrent to potential violators. States with applicable laws could do a great deal of good in this field if they could increase the number of men assigned to the work.

As barbiturates have become increasingly difficult to get in many drugstores, an underworld interest has sprung up. While we are not aware of any big organized bootleg rings dealing in this drug the facts are we just do not have enough information in this area to reach a valid conclusion. The source of the drugs is generally a renegade druggist, or they may be stolen. They bring exorbitant prices when smuggled into prisons or when in other strictly bootleg channels. The Food and Drug Administration does not have the personnel to delve very deeply into this underworld traffic and we do not therefore know its extent.

For whatever interest it may have, we have prepared a chart showing the number of man-years of the inspectors' time which have been devoted to developing cases against those who dispense dangerous drugs illegally. It shows increased attention to the program following the Supreme Court's decision that this law applied to retail transactions. We believe that the combined educational activities of the pharmacists' organizations and our enforcement activities, coupled with local activities, have produced a beneficial but unmeasurable effect.

About half the cases brought since our enforcement program began, involved at least in part, charges that barbiturates had been dispensed illegally. Last fiscal year, 76 out of 142 cases contained 1 or more counts based on barbiturates.

Senator DANIEL. Your table as to the time will be made a part of the record.

Mr. LARRICK. Fine.

(The table referred to follows:)

Time devoted to investigation of improper sale of prescription-legend drugs

1 Estimated from total project hours, basis experience fiscal years 1953-55, inclusive. (Reporting s* used prior to fiscal year 1953 called for total field project time only.)

Senator DANIEL. Let me clear this up. You have 142 cases against pharmacists, or does that include others, too?

Mr. LARRICK. No; that includes all cases involving the illegal sale of drugs at retail. That involves some of them are lay people that had them improperly. Some of these are these doctors I spoke of, these renegade doctors, and others are pharmacists.

Senator DANIEL. Are those cases confined to the Federal courts or prosecutions under the Pure Food and Drugs Act?

Mr. LARRICK. These are all cases in the Federal courts under the Pure Food and Drugs Act.

Senator DANIEL. And there were 142 the last fiscal year?

Mr. LARRICK. That is right.

Senator DANIELS. And 76 involved

Mr. LARRICK. Had one or more counts involving barbiturates.

But we are only able to give with our facilities 26 men's time to cover this traffic throughout the entire United States. The chart shows that.

Senator DANIEL. Both of these charts you have given us have been made part of the committee files; is that all right?

Mr. LARRICK. I would like to have them so made.

Senator DANIEL. If we can reproduce them, they will be put in the record.

Mr. LARRICK. I have an article here gotten up by our medical director, which undertakes to state the good and bad about amphetamines.

Senator DANIEL. That is the one you referred to before?

Mr. LARRICK. Yes, sir.

Senator DANIEL. That will be made a part of the record, of the appendix to the record.

Mr. LARRICK. Did I give you one?

Senator DANIEL. Do you have a prepared statement for us on the question of amphetamines?

Mr. LARRICK. Well, the prepared statement is this document I just put in the record. I have prepared at committee counsel's request a series of illustrations of the abuses of amphetamines.

Senator DANIEL. Of the amphetamines?

Mr. LARKICK. Yes, sir. I have a series of cases of both amphetamines and barbiturates that Mr. Gasque

Senator DANIEL. Do you have those separated?

Mr. LARRICK. Yes, sir.

Senator DANIEL. Could you let us put in the body of the record at this time the cases which are illustrative of the excessive use of barbiturates?

Mr. LARRICK. Right, sir.

Senator DANIEL. We will place that in the body of the record at this time.

(The document referred to follows:)

AMPHETAMINES

The St. Louis Police Department informed us they had received reliable information from an addict as to the source of the amphetamines he used. It developed he bought from a liquor and tobacco store which carried drugs illegally. He wanted his supply stopped so he could live normally. The actual operator turned out to be a man with a long police record for burglary, larceny, ass and extortion. Because he could not get a license to handle liquor, every was managed in his mother's name.

Before our case against him was sent to the district attorney the police killed him while attempting robbery of a drugstore, which was apparently the method he used to obtain the drugs he sold at the liquor store.

(63-060 L: Prosecution recommended; September 21, 1954.)

The Bureau of Narcotics passed on to us letters they had received from a woman who offered to give them leads to a peddler of benzedrine.

Our inspectors interviewed her in Missouri, and she told them of a man who worked in a neighborhood drugstore and solicited customers for amphetamines after hours; he even sold them in the store. He charged $2 a dozen, the legitimate price ranges from 35 to 60 cents a dozen. This pusher and the owner had a number of ex-convicts and narcotic addicts they supplied with drugs of one kind or another.

It developed that this store had no registered pharmacist to supervise its drug business and the owner was operating a basically illegal business in addition to selling amphetamines and barbiturates freely to almost anybody who asked for them.

(90-439 L: Owner sentenced to 1 year in jail; $500 fine plus $37.50 costs. No buys from pusher.)

The Bureau of Narcotics informed us they had investigated a lead to an alleged narcotics addict but found the drug involved was really amphetamine. It appeared that a woman in Indiana was receiving this drug by mail from another town in the same State. The woman's sister said the addict was receiving 1 or 2 shipments a week of 100 to 200 tablets (5 milligrams) each. Her husband said a doctor had first prescribed the drug about 3 years previously but after a month he took her off amphetamine and refused to give her any more prescriptions for it. He said the drug made her stay awake all night. She became nervous, irritable, threw things at him, and, on several occasions threatened to kill him and commit suicide.

She had feelings of anxiety and often kept their young son home from school because she feared to be alone. She neglected her housework and sold some of the furniture, presumably to buy drugs. She wrote some bad checks and kept the family in a turmoil with her irresponsible acts.

When the inspector questioned her, she admitted taking about 75 milligrams of the drug a day, about 5 times the usual dosage doctors prescribe for reducing. (70-849 L: Terminated March 23, 1954. Owner, 2 years' probation.)

We received a letter signed by a man and his wife stating that they had both used amphetamines by the thousands. They had reached the point of hallucinations, had been confined in an institution and, now, were offering to do their part to help us stop the illegitimate use of these drugs.

Our inspector found them to be a middle-aged couple; they lived in Colorado. A doctor had prescribed an amphetamine for the woman because she was overweight; she liked the sensation it produced and got her husband to try the drug, too.

They both started taking it; went to doctors for more and more prescriptions. They apparently secured an inexhaustible source based on these prescriptions. For several weeks they each took as many as 200 tablets (10 times the usual dosage) a week. They stayed home during this time and only left to buy more drugs or get a little food. They lived on soda pop and ice cream because the drug took their appetites. They slept only 3 or 4 hours a night. Then they got the illusion they were FBI agents and had secret conferences with the President and J. Edgar Hoover. They spent their days and nights sitting at the kitchen table duscussing plots and plans based on their phantasies.

The extended "binge" eventually made them physically ill and they went to a doctor; they didn't tell him what they had been doing, but they did quit taking the drug abruptly. They said they believe they slept for 2 days sitting at the kitchen table. They went back to the doctor who put them in the hospital.

The hallucinations continued for several weeks after stopping the drug. Their strange actions resulted in their being sent to a mental hospital; shock treatments and other psychiatric therapy straightened them out, and they were released as mentally competent. The course of events these people described were confirmed

by friends and the doctors who treated them. The inspector observed that they both looked debilitated and nervous when he saw them about a year after they had first embarked on the use of amphetamines.

(69-904 L: Terminated September 15, 1954. Corporation, $1,500, 3 years' probation; each of 2 employees, $500, 1 year probation; total, $2,500.)

BARBITURATES

A police officer and a man in Minnesota informed us that the man's daughter, 28 years old, had been using barbiturates to excess for about 4 years. She had been under the care of various doctors who, though they prescribed barbiturates initially, soon learned that she could not handle them properly and refused to furnish her any more. She had taken overdoses several times and had to be hospitalized as a result. The father and her husband were anxious to stop her source though they did not know exactly where it was.

About the same time this information was received, neighbors of the family asked our help in correcting the hazard the addict was creating. She had been found unconscious in the street several times and had driven her car over one of the neighbors' lawns; people feared for their children's safety in this situation. It developed the addict often used a taxicab, and we were thus able to locate one of her sources. She also telephoned a drugstore, represented herself to be a wellknown doctor in the city, and ordered a large amount of barbiturates. The pharmacist suspected something was wrong and this led to her arrest.

Our inspector interviewed her in jail. She said she had taught school until 3 or 4 months previously, but resigned because her addiction made teaching impossible. She had obtained her drugs over the years by any and every devious means she could think of. She admitted she had had several automobile accidents while intoxicated with drugs.

(20-137 L: Terminated August 26, 1953. Owner fined $600; probation for 3 years.)

Police in a town in Georgia told us they had arrested a man who had been involved in an automobile accident while under the influence of barbiturates. He had these drugs and amphetamines on him at the time of the accident.

We learned that this man, a middle-aged bachelor, first had barbiturates administered to him when he was in a hospital. Later he used them to quiet his nerves after a protracted drunk. He bought most of them on prescriptions. Later he used amphetamines to wake him up from the sluggishness produced by the barbiturates. Then he would take barbiturates to soothe the jittery feeling produced by the amphetamines.

Information was obtained that indicated the source of this man's drugs; another complaint involved the same outlet and a case was developed.

2-490 L: Terminated, April 12, 1954. Corporation, $500, 1 year's probation; manager, $200, 2 years' probation; employee, $150, 2 years' probation; employee, $50, 2 years' probation; total, $900.)

State officials in Florida relayed a complaint from a resident who gave them two bottles of capsules his daughter had recently received by mail. His daughter had had marital troubles and when she was visiting in Delaware a doctor prescribed barbiturates for her. She had the prescription filled in her hometown in Ohio in 1951. The woman became addicted to the drug and eventually moved to Florida. In 1954 she was still receiving by mail regular shipments based on this prescription; this was the basis of the father's complaint. Neither the doctor nor the pharmacist knew of this addiction.

(70-762 L: Terminated September 20, 1954. Owner fined $100.)

The District of Columbia Narcotics Squad bought barbiturates from a narcotics addict who was pushing them-probably to help support his narcotics habit. He was under the influence of narcotics when the police arrested him for these sales. He indicated the store which was the source of his supply and even bought some barbiturates with marked money the police furnished.

(75-183L: Terminated June 15, 1954. Fine $500; owner, 1 year jail (probation).)