This film traces the use of the opium poppy from the Mediterranean in 4000 B.C. through the British and American opium trade with China in the 1800s to the modern era. Charles Siragusa talks about the international heroin trade and estimates that two tons of heroin is smuggled into the port of New York each year. Vernon Holm, a customs agent, describes how private yachts and airplanes are used to smuggle heroin. There are an estimated 60,000 addicts in the United States. Heroin is primarily found in ghettos, with gangs and the Mafia. The United States has made various legal attempts to regulate drugs through the Harris Act in 1914 which restricted drugs, and the 1956 Narcotic Control Act. In the 1960s addiction is seen as an illness. The 1966 Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act allows addicts to elect treatment rather than prison for certain drug related offenses. The film shows the Lexington, Kentucky hospital for drug abuse research. Sherman N. Kieffer, associate director for patient care, National Institute of Mental Health, describes the hospital and its research on the addict. The tape also reports on Synanon, a private facility for addicts in California, and Daytop Village, a publicly-funded recovery program in New York City. Learn more about this film and search its transcript at NLM Digital Collections: http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/10130021. Learn more about the National Library of Medicine's historical audiovisuals program at: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/collections/films
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