Human Wreckage (1923)

Ethel McFarland presents her attorney husband Alan with the case of dope addict Jimmy Brown. With the help of Alan's impassioned defense, Jimmy gets acquitted. Alan feels the pressures of his job and is introduced to a doctor at his club. When he becomes addicted, he is blackmailed by his peddlers to represent their friends in court. Jimmy, now off the smack and a taxi driver, hears of these goings-on. When he discovers that his passenger is the leader of the dope ring, he resolves to aide the war on narcotics by crashing the vehicle head-on into an oncoming train, killing them both. Alan gets treated for his addiction and begins to fight the pushers in court, pushing for stronger laws against addictive substances. At the film's close, producer Dorothy Davenport (Ethel), whose husband Wallace Reid died of a drug overdose, addresses the audience, imploring them to support her in her crusade to wipe out the narcotic menace in the United States forever.