COCAINE AGAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 252, 23 October 1924, Page 4

COCAINE AGAIN.

SYDNEY CASES. YOUNG WOMAN IN GUr. ** MANY ADDICTS. 7 -■' "!*'7" (From Our Special Correspondent} .7 - SYDNEY, October IT. Interest in the spreading traffic in cocaine in New South Wales has been aroused again bj a story which hinted at in a Sydney paper this we* It concerns a young woman of jbjo_ parents, who has had a partfcrdtrW successful scholastic career, and w« looked upon to have a brilliant future. About srx months ago she disappeared suddenly, and it was three months befo-e her people could locate her again. They "say she was under the protection of _" man, who, heretofore, had been unknown" to them. Her parents claim that she was under the influence of the drug,an_ that she was kept under its influence by the man with whom they found her. She returned home with them, stayed'one night, but was gone in the morning, and they concluded that the craving for the drug had been too much for her.

• Another three months passed before they traced her again, and on the second" occasion the police found her in the company of tbe same man. She was not under the influence of the drug on this j occasion, and denied that she was in the habit of taking it, or had been supplied with it by the man concerned A charge was made against her to keep her under control, but the police were powerless to detain the man. Duping the Addicts. Hardly had the effect of that story passed jwhen the police recovered what they took to be a large quantity of cocaine. It was found in a house which. the detectives raided in Surrey Hills, and was contained in a large glass jar labelled "Cocaine."' There were also several brown paper packets o£ the same white powder. Analysis, however, proved it to be nothing more harmful than horacic powder. But the-police aver that it had been retailed as cocaine, and they state that there is a great trade done by unscrupulous persons who sell the pseudo cocaine to drug addicts. So far gone are many of them that they will snap at any chance of more supplies, and so they pay big prices for what turns out to be boracic powder or some similar article. Greatest Danger. Discussing the traffic, a police officer who has handled many of the worst addicts, made the startling declaration that the cocaine traffic was growing by leaps and bounds. "Opium in China is nothing to what the cocaine habit will be in New South Wales in the space of two years," he said. "The law is so la-c at present that the police are really powerless to prevent the trading, which is carried'on secretly for the most part. I know- of my own experience that an amazing percentage of the young men and womeit of the present generation are becopiing addicts of the drug. - " They' will do anything to get it, and its menace is "greater than I can state."

Though the trade was, for the most part secret, he said there was one lpan who trafficked in an open manner. In the guise of an organ-grinder he visits i various localities where he knows his customers reside, aud stated times he sings announce his arrival. On the pretence of paying him for his music the addicts get their "snow." "His visits are as regular as the milkman," tbe officer said. "Anyone who has any knowledge of the extent to which the drug is used in Sydney will admit that a life sentence is too -lenient for the trafficker. Yet the law only provides a penalty of £20."'