DRUG HABIT IN NEW YORK.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3146, 4 December 1922, Page 2

DRUG HABIT IN NEW YORK.

"When Congress meets next month an effort will be made to obtain a Congressional investigation of the narcotic drug habit in New York city, where medical and administrative authorities declare opium and other drug addicts have doubled in number since 1912. In connection with this matter serious disclosures are anticipated. It is alleged by some members of Congress that the condition of affairs has been greatly aggravated and complicated by the administration of existing narcotic laws in New York City by the Hylan regime, and points toward a conspiracy on the part of certain administrators and physicians to drive addicts into established sanitariums which claim to be able to cure them.” They declare the method of enforcement of those laws “lias tended to increase smuggling peddling and the illegal distribution of opium and its derivations and lias resulted in a virtual monopoly in the treatment of victims by privately owned sanitariums conducted by charlatans and fakers.”

Some physicians assert that under the present Now York laws it is practically impossible for the medical profession to treat addicts without danger of arrest and indictment. Representative Yolk, ol Brooklyn, who was formerly editor of the Medical Economist, and who is recognised as being one of the best informed men in Congress on opiate addiction, charges that the present Board ol Health ol New York City swept aside reliable records. reports, scientific information and experience in handling drug addicts. He declared on the Moor of the House not long ago that “a small group, among whom stand out prominently the names of Royal S. Copeland. Health Commissioner of New \ork Citv; Drs E. Elliott Harris, S. Dana Hubbard. Alfred C. Greenfield, have set up a campaign of publicity intended in the end to benefit this small coterie which seems to control the avenues of narcotic treatment throughout the country.”