The Boylan Act (or the Boylan Bill or the Towns-Boylan Act) was a piece of April 1914 legislation in New York State, dealing with narcotics and addiction.
The Act predated the federal 1915 Harrison Act, and in some ways anticipated it.
Towns, one of the sponsors of the Act, stated "it takes only five or six days to cure a drug fiend in hospital.
"[2] In 1917, the Whitney Act weakened the Boylan Act by allowing physicians to prescribe narcotics to addicts in the course of treating their addiction.
overturned, as it had the unintended consequence of stimulating the black market for narcotics.