DRUG FIENDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 80, 6 April 1926, Page 13

DRUG FIENDS.

MANY IN SYDNEY.

STEW BUREAU AT WORK.

(From Out o<vn Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, March 26

Recent activities of the Drug Bureau, a, branch of the Police Department, established by the New South Wales Police Commissioner, to drug traffic and co-ordinate information re <rardinz traders and addicts, show that an"enormous number of men and women are taking drugs in Sydney. One case is on record where a young woman, craving for more cocaine, which, in the main, is sniffed through the nose by the addic:. took a quantity of the Enuff and later found that the membranes at the back of her nose and throat had been lacerated. A medical man discovered thac the cocaine had been mixed with ground glass or some equally gritty EUhstance, and this had done irretrievable harm to her nose and throat. This week the premises of Burroughs, Welcome and Company, druggists, were broken into, and some hundreds of pounds' worth of cocaine, morphine, and opium tablets were stolen, as well as a number of syringes. This robbery is believed to have been the work of the "dope" ring in Sydney. Detectives arrested two men in the city on Wednesday night, and found in their possession a bag full of drugs, believed to have been stolen from a country chemist, whose place was ransacked a few days ago. They were charged with having stolen the goods in their custody.

Simultaneous raids on other places in the city this v.-eek resulted in two other arrests.

At one place the detectives found a young woman under the influence of drugs, recovered a quantity of cocaine in her possession, and found a revolver in her handbag. She was charged in connection with the unlicensed revolver, for there is no charge to cover the possession of the cocaine, which was confiscated by the police.

At another house they arrested a man, also drug ridden, wbo bad stolen property in his room, and another loaded revolver. He, too, was charged, and hidden under his matress the police found opium tablets.

The Government is being moved to immediately tighten the laws relating to the possession of unlicensed drugs, so that the work of the bureau may not be hampered.