OPIUM, ETC., AND COMPOUNDS, MANUFACTURERS 
355 
lawfully entitled to sell, deal in, dispense, prescribe, and 
distribute the aforesaid drugs, to obtain said drugs from 
persons registered under this act within the continental 
United States for legitimate medical purposes, without 
regard to the order forms described in this section.” 
See Executive Order No. 4632, published in Prohibition 
T. D. 5, relative to narcotic drugs for use in the Virgin 
[slands. 
Section 2 of the act of December 17, 1914, being a revenue 
measure, is not an invasion of the police power reserved to 
the States and is constitutional. The provisions of such sec- 
tion have a reasonable relation to the enforcement of the 
tax provided by section 1 of such act (which is clearly 
unobjectionable) and do not exceed the power of Congress. 
(United States ». Doremus, 249 U. S., 86; T. D. 2809.) 
The first sentence of section 2 of said act prohibits retail 
sales of morphine by druggists to persons who have no 
physician’s prescription, who have no order blank therefor, 
and who can not obtain an order blank because not of the 
class to which such blanks are allowed to be issued, and 
such prohibition is constitutional. (Id.) 
A physician who sells, gives away, or distributes 500 one- 
sixth grain tablets of heroin not in pursuance of a written 
order on a form issued on the blank furnished by the Com- 
missioner of Internal Revenue, or who sells, dispenses, or 
distributes a like quantity of heroin not in the course of 
his regular professional practice, and not for the treatment 
of any disease, but to a person popularly known as a 
“dope fiend” for the purpose of gratifying his appetite for 
the drug as a habitual user thereof. commits an indictable 
ffense. (Id.) 
An order issued by a practicing and registered physician 
for morphine to an habitual user thereof, the order not 
being issued by him in the course of professional treatment 
in the attempted cure of the habit, but being issued for 
the purpose of providing the user with morphine sufficient 
to keep him comfortable by maintaining his customary use, 
is not a physician’s prescription within exception (b) of 
section 2 of the act of December 17, 1914. (United States v. 
Doremus, 249 U. S., 86; T. D. 2809. Webb et al. v. United 
States, 249 U. S., 96; T. D. 2809.) 
Where sales are made without written orders from pur- 
chasers, it is immaterial that the defendant is a physician, 
his sales not being in the practice of his profession, but as 
2 Mgmena dealer. (Hughes v. United States. 253 Fed., 
To constitute the offense of selling drugs contrary to 
section 2 of the antinarcotic act, it is not necessary that 
the seller be aware of their character. (United States wv. 
Balint et al, 258 U. 8, 250; T. D. 3375.) 
Punishment for an illegal act done by one in ignorance 
of the facts making it illegal. is not contrary to due process 
of law. (Id.) 
Whether scienter is a necessary element of a statutory 
crime, though not expressed in the statute, is a question of 
legislative intent to be answered by a construction of the 
statute. (Id.) 
In an indictment charging defendant with unlawfully sell- 
ing morphine in violation of the antinarcotic act by issuing 
a prescription, the clause as to issuing the prescription, 
being intimately involved in the description of the offense, 
can not be treated as surplusage, but it is not repugnant to 
the charge of selling, since under the act one person may