Aba Ama
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Aba Ama
The names of organizations, teams, and medical conditions can elicit controversy when presumedly unintentional defamation of a subset of individuals is perceived. Indeed, this has recently resulted in changing the names of sports teams and diseases. Previously, the ABA (American Baboon Association) solicited the other ABA (American Bar Association), and the drug reaction initially described to as baboon syndrome is now appropriately referred to as symmetrical drug-related intertriginous and flexural exanthema (SDRIFE). Currently, the AMA (American Monkey Association)-with the support of the ABA (American Baboon Association) -has notified the other AMA (American Medical Association) that they consider the name monkeypox unacceptable for this viral infection. The ABA (American Baboon Association) and the AMA (American Monkey Association) are fictional organizations created by the author for the purpose of this satire.
Note: The two major documents discussed in this chapter are also in theSchaffer Online library: Drug Addiction, Crime or Disease? The Report of the Joint ABA-AMA Committee on Narcotic Drugs
Comments on Narcotic Drugs - Harry Anslinger's reply to the ABA-AMA report.
AT THE SAME TIME (February 1955) that the American Bar Association addressed Congress,asking for a review of the federal drug program, ABA spokesmen also approached theAmerican Medical Association and proposed that the two sister groups undertake a jointstudy. Obviously the subject concerned the legal and medical professions equally, and thesponsors of this project had great hopes for it. A forceful stand taken in that period,backed by the authority of these two professional bodies, might have sufficed to bringenforcement of the Harrison Act back into perspective by forcing federal officials toacknowledge that the law meant what the Supreme Court had said it meant in the Lindercase. Furthermore, such an authoritative joint study might have breached the secrecy whichhad so long enabled Commissioner Anslinger to exploit public ignorance and play onexaggerated fears.
If nothing else, the lawyers believed that once the good doctors realized how themedical profession had been so long pushed around by mere tax collectors they would bestirred to anger and action. If a substantial group within the medical fraternity ever setout to reclaim its prerogatives from the drug police, at least a jolly scrap would ensue,in which the bar might be able to tip the scale toward victory for its sisterprofessionals.
It would probably be stretching to suggest that the haste with which Senator Daniel andCongressman Boggs moved into their respective investigations, immediately after the ABAaction, was induced by apprehension as to what might come of this joint ABA-AMA study,although it may be noted that the Narcotics Bureau pushed both congressional ventures fromthe very day of the ABA resolutions. But in any event, Senator Daniel rushed precipitouslyto his conclusions, as we have seen, while the joint ABA-AMA Committee moved slowly. Itwas still in the processes of organizing and funding when Congress passed theBureau-dictated Narcotic Control Act of 1956. And it encountered delays and obstacles atevery turn.
It will be remembered that the American Medical Association had just taken a submissiveposition-as described by its spokesmen before the Daniel Subcommittee in the New Yorkhearings based on the report of its Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry, which rejected theNew York Academy proposal out of hand. But the Academy proposal had, also been referred tothe AMA Council on Mental Health, and whereas the former had leapt to its conclusionswithout independent study, the latter still had under way a careful review, with a muchmore liberal orientation. (Recall Dr. Bartemeier's partial dissociation from the AMAposition at the Daniel hearings.) The joint ABA-AMA project nearly foundered at the outsetbecause the AMA hierarchy first said the Association's position had been fixed by theCouncil on Pharmacy conclusions, and then questioned the need for any further studybecause of the forthcoming report of its second Council. But this difficulty was overcomeby appointing as one of the AMA members of the Joint Committee Dr. Robert H. Felix, whowas also chairman of the Council on Mental Health, and when the latter Council finishedits work, which included a thorough survey of medical and pharmacological material onaddiction, its report became a starting point for the joint Committee.
Then there was delay because of fears among bar leaders that the joint Committee mightstray away from narrow legal consideration and involve the Association in"sociological controversies." The ABA Board of Governors ruled that despite thejoint nature of the venture, working funds could only be sought through anultraconservative ABA subsidiary, the American Bar Foundation. The Foundation announcedits unwillingness to aid a project so far from the traditional aspects of legal practices,and it was further ordained that if funds were independently obtained, administration ofthe project would have to be controlled exclusively by the ABF, including even theselection of participants and the direction of research.
The AMA delegation flatly refused such bridling conditions, and after a period in whichthe whole undertaking came close to foundering again, the impasse was resolved byobtaining help in the form of a small grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, one of thefew funding bodies with its own operating staff.
Once under way-the foundation grant was obtained in October 1956, twenty months afterthe initial ABA resolution and three months after President Eisenhower had signed theNarcotic Control Act-the Joint Committee commissioned a survey of existing data to providea basis for recommending research projects, or, if it proved possible, to supportconclusions drawn from existing source material. Simultaneously a review of drug laws andpolicies elsewhere in the world was undertaken.
Another year elapsed. In November 1957, in the light of studies completed to that date,the joint Committee agreed on five specific projects: a small-scale, carefully controlledoutpatient facility or "clinic' where addicts could be treated experimentally, whichthe Committee felt could most appropriately be set up in Washington, D.C.; research aimedat learning more about relapse and causative factors in addiction; an evaluation ofeducational campaigns and other preventative techniques; legal research to clear upconfusion in existing federal and state laws; and a detailed study of the way in whichexisting laws and policies were currently being administered.
Accompanying these recommendations was a seventy-page analysis, prepared by JudgeMorris Ploscowe, summarizing developments after the 1914 Harrison Act and gentlysuggesting that severity of punishment might not be the only or even the best way to deteraddiction, that nobody could be sure of the number of addicts, though the problem hadremained a vexing one for forty years, and that criminality associated with addictionmight spring more from the need to get money to pay the peddlers' prices than frominherent evil in the affliction itself. Analyzing the nature of addiction (with a copioussampling of authorities), judge Ploscowe concluded that addicts should be regardedprimarily as sick persons, sometimes drawn to drugs by underlying personality disordersrather than by lack of character or criminal inclination, and that the spread of drugabuse was due to complex sociological factors rather than solely to the malevolent"contagious" nature of the addict.
In a review of the Linder case and subsequent court decisions, the Ploscowe studyconcluded that notwithstanding the contrary position of the Narcotics Bureau, physicianscould legally treat addicts, including the prescribing of narcotic drugs, so long as thetreatment was in good faith and according to proper medical standards. Finally, it wassuggested that throwing addicts into prison was not a good solution, that the New YorkAcademy proposal deserved further consideration, and that experimenting with outpatienttreatment for addicts should be encouraged.
If the foregoing recitation sounds bland and the research proposals less than ultimata,that is what it was and they were not. The Committee had used most of its grant, so as aneconomy the Ploscowe review was combined with a survey of drug policies in other countriesand a brief interim report addressed to the parent Houses of Delegates, and the whole wasprinted in temporary form as an unbound document which looked more like proofs than afinished tome. Only enough of these were printed for the two Associations, with a smalloverrun for distribution to interested persons. Out of excess caution, because the reportwas not being submitted for final action, this makeshift version even bore a legendmarking it confidential and not for general distribution.
On every occasion, from its first organizational meeting, the joint Committee hadextended invitations to Commissioner Anslinger to attend and participate or to send anominee, but these invitations were consistently declined. When judge Ploscowe's study andthe joint Committee's proposed recommendations were still in draft form, they were sent tothe Commissioner with an invitation to continent, or to meet for a discussion. Anslingerreplied:
For your kindness in sending me, with your letter of February 24 [1958], the interim report of the joint Committee of the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association on Narcotic Drugs and asking for comments and suggestions, I am grateful. As for my comment, after reading this report I find it incredible that so many glaring inaccuracies, manifest inconsistencies, apparent ambiguities, important omissions and even false statements could be found in one report on the narcotic problem. 041b061a72