When witness Judge Jonah Goldstein appeared before the Boggs Subcommittee in 1956, he admonished the very legislators who had been instrumental in crafting a punishment regime for illicit narcotic use: “Common sense and experience,” he told the congressmen, “dictate that habits cannot be controlled or cured by criminal law.” Doubtless Goldstein drew on knowledge he gained while serving on New York’s Court of General Sessions, but, as the congressional members knew well, Goldstein’s view was also one that was gaining traction in a variety of professional circles. A short time later, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Bar Association (ABA) would issue reports critical of the criminal punishment approach in dealing with illicit drug use. For the medical society in particular this was a striking departure, as the new stance on illicit drugs recanted previous claims, and the positions that the AMA now saw fit to renounce had once been essential in sparing professional medical authority from the review and contempt of U.S. Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger.

Such authority now flourished well beyond the reach of Anslinger’s reproach, and the medical profession relied on its popular esteem in striking new ground. Doctors also seemed to be influenced by more mundane forms of social engagement as well: new ideas regarding “addiction” came from several corners in the late 1950s, and these contemporary views reinforced the revised medical consensus on illicit drug use. While doctors and others recast public perceptions of the “addict,” legal professionals took stock of the now-unwieldy set of criminal punishments in place for illicit narcotic use. At the same time that the medical community held out the possibilities for a new way of dealing with addiction, important legal circles were at work discrediting the old one.