TO MAKE CARBOLIC
ACID HARD TO BUY.
DRUGGISTS WANT A LAW REGU-
LATING SALE OF POISON.
Would Sell a Diluted, Harmless
Form to the General Trade, and
the Strong Drug on Pre-
scriptions Only.
It is going to be harder to commit suicide with carbolic acid in Kansas City in a little while.
The dictum has gone forth from the Kansas City Retail Druggists' Association. Alarmed by the number of deaths from this drug, the association, at a meeting last week, appointed a legislative committee to draft an ordinance for presentation to the council. This measure, which is to be patterned closely after the law in force in Chicago, will to a great extent do away with the drug as a means of self-destruction.
At the present time any child may buy the acid, which really is no acid at all, but a form of alcohol called phenol. Druggists say they dare not refuse to sell the drug for fear of losing much of their trade, as carbolic acid is extensively employed in cleansing. Much as they hate to serve this trade, they find they must do it in order to hold their customers for other lines in the drug trade.
The new ordinance, which is to be presented for introduction in the council as soon as it has been approved by the legislative committee and presented to the Jackson County Medical Association for its indorsement, hedges the sale of the drug about with rigid restrictions. By its terms, the ordinary carbolic acid to be sold over the counters will retain all its qualities as an antiseptic and for cleansing. It will be robbed, however, of its power to destroy human life, and in a very simple way.
DILUTE THE DRUG.
While carbolic acid is a form of alcohol, the best antidote for the poison, curiously enough, is alcohol. So the druggists propose to sell, or rather to compel themselves to sell, a mixture of 1-3 carbolic acid, 1-3 alcohol and 1-3 glycerin. If anybody tries to commit suicide with this mixture, he will have nothing but a bad taste in the mouth and perhaps a little nausea.
The real carbolic acid, under this ordinance, may be sold only on the prescription of a regularly licensed physician. Exceptions are the sale of more than one gallon to one person or the handling of the product in a commercial way by wholesale houses and the like.
All offenses against the ordinance are made, as in the case of Chicago, misdemeanors, punishable by fines of from $10 to $25 or by imprisonment of from thirty days to six months.
To do away with abuses of the prescription, the ordinance makes it unlawful to forge prescriptions or to put on them the wrong date or to misrepresent in any way. These offenses are also made misdemeanors and punishable by the same fine.
THAT'S NOT COMFORTABLE.
"Druggists have decided that they must have some protection in this matter," said D. V. Whitney, president of the druggists' association, who conducts a store at 3722 East Twelfth street. "It is no comfortable feeling to know, if you are a druggist, that you have sold carbolic acid which has resulted in a person's death. But druggists have no way to get out of such sales except by passing a law compelling themselves to do what they already want to.
"Accidents happen easily. For instance, a child may be sent to a store to buy carbolic acid. On the way home it may drop the bottle, and in picking up the fragments sustain severe burns. The modified drug will not burn. It is a case in which the druggists are trying to secure legislation to protect the general public. The stores themselves will make no more profit for the diluted carbolic acid costs for the druggists as much as the strong drug.
"Our ordinance provides that prescriptions must give the name and address of both patient and doctor. These prescriptions must be open at all times to the inspection of the coroner, the police and the city and county authorities."
