The Project Gutenberg EBook of Revenge, by Arthur Porges

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Title: Revenge

Author: Arthur Porges

Release Date: January 9, 2009 [EBook #27756]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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REVENGE

By ARTHUR PORGES

_Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned,
but the fury of a biochemist scorned is just as great
--and much more fiendish._

If the Syndicate is half as powerful as some people have claimed,
they'll murder me any day now. I object on principle to being killed by
evil men for a good deed, so maybe lynching by stupid ones is
preferable. I mean you, and you--the suetheads who profited by my work,
but refused your help.

You've been yammering about narcotics for years--how drug addiction was
spreading, reaching down even to your unmannerly, spoiled brats, who
despise their parents and our venal society to the same degree. The
stuff comes in by the ton across the Mexican border; they grow it for
our benefit in Red China; and a few "friendly" Asian countries don't
mind exporting some now and then, either. In spite of heroic work by our
small group of poorly financed narcotics agents, the flow of drugs
cannot be halted.

Oh, you and your elected representatives made a lot of panicky moves to
combat this threat. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was
given a new Bureau, set up like the F.B.I., and headed by Myron P.
Bishop, a man trained by that distinguished expert on narcotics,
Anslinger, himself.

But as to sensible solutions, such as legalizing the sale of heroin to
break the world-wide criminal control on the distribution of drugs--that
your vapid Puritan morality wouldn't permit. Millions of dollars for
enforcement, and to punish the sick, but not one cent for prevention,
and almost nothing to find out why people become addicts in the first
place, and how to cure them.

It wasn't entirely your fault. You listened to the experts, usually
career policemen who expect to cure any