DRUG TRAFFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 95, 22 April 1924, Page 8

DRUG TRAFFIC.

■ OPIUM AND COCAINE. INFLUENTIAL ENE-HES. LONDON, March 23. A movement has been inaugurated which will, perhaps, sound the death knell pf the drug traffic, particularly in epeaine. An international committee is at present meeting in Paris to prepare a programme for the Geneva cpnference in Nnvember, when the agenda will centain provisions for the international control of the productipn pf nnxipus drugs. "The Lancet" and other medical journals anticipate action, largely owing to American pressure, but do not disguise the difficulties, such as Britain's resppnsibility for the excessive opium production in India. Those whp are carrying on the antidrug campaign hope for the greatest success in regard to cocaine, of which the total abolition is proposed. The authorities declare that cocaine is no Ipnger necessary owing tp substitutes such as novocain and butyn. The problem is only soluble by the" League pf Nations, however, in cunsequence of the almost incredible pro? vision of the Versailles Protocpl of 1920, under which Germany is required to deliver to the Separations Committee 12 per cent of her total productipn of cocaine. This means that while the deetors and police in France and England are fighting the drug menace the respective Gpvernments compel Germany to supply the drug- as reparations. It is manufactured entirely in Germany and Switzerland from the coca leaf, which is mainly grown in Java. Dr. C. W. Saleeby, writing in, the "Manchester Guardian," says that cocaine is entirely unwanted. Sir "William Bayliss, Professpr of General Physinlpgy, University College, Dublin, agrees with Dr. Saleeby. He states:—"The recent discussion by the Royal Society of Medicine demonstrated that cocaine is not necessary Doctors will never again prescribe' cocaine. If it is necessary surgically they will personally administer it, though the weightiest opinions favour its disguise. "Undoubtedly an embargo on production is the only solution of the illicit traffic. We hppe Britain's damnable cennectien with opium will not be the means pf holding up the whole question of international control."