GROWING MENACE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 4, 5 July 1926, Page 3

GROWING MENACE

SYDNEY'S DRUG TRAFFIC

POLICE TAKE ACTION

DRUG BUREAU ESTABLISHED,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, 25th June.

While the distance of Australia from more densely populated countries prevents tho drug evil from assuming the proportions attained in the United States, Britain, Asia, and European countries, the menace of "dope" in this city has grown sufficiently large to warrant action on the part of the police, and to justify a special jffort to prevent its further growth. This is the conclusion reached by the New South Wales Commissioner of Police (Mr. Mitchell). His first action has been the establishment of a Drug Bureau as a branch of the Police Department's activities, in which the aid of specially-deputed detectives will bo bent towards the. detection of traffickers and the reformation of addicts. The Commissioner also hopes to have attached to the bureau a leading medica lexpert in order that it can bo guided in the handling of cases. '' We know comparatively little of the misery and destitution that tho drug habit can cause," said Mr. Mitchell, in announcing the formation of the bureau, "and it is our aim to prevent its increase, and to lead addicts back to health." That the evil is one that can be tackled on more comprehensive lines than at present is recognised by the Commissioner. He said that with the formation of the bureau and the amending of the Police Offenders' Act to strengthen the hands of the police, the police hoped to do more effective work. Every person who could be saved from sinking into the abyss would constitute a justification. LIKE A CANCER GROWTH. Mr. Mitchell recently had a tour abroad, and the present step is taken as the result of some of his experiences overseas. He found the drug evil in other countries like a cancer growth, ravaging the morals and health of thousands of people. One determination he formed was that the people of this country should be forearmed against the evil assuming gross proportions here, and probably his lead will be followed in other' States, especially Victoria. Tho drug traffic, is not easy to detect, as it is not, like drunkenness, for instance, a showy, or spectacular, sin. If a man becomes drunk, becomes bellicose or unsociable, and goes out and punches a policeman, you know exactly where to find him next day—in the polieo Court. But the drug addict, casting himself in the waters of Lethe, in order to blot out everything, just sinks slowly out of sight. Rarely is he found in the Courts. Thedrug habit is not always inspired by viciousness in a man's character. In the first stage, drugs are a short-cut to relief from physical suffering or mental stress, and then by gradations there grows a craving for them. "Thero is no more powerful demoralising agency to-day," said a leading Sydney doctor, '' than the illicit drug- traffic. The drink traffic is only a bagatelle compared with it." Goal for the drug trafficker and sympathy and special treatment for the addict will be the policy of the new police activity. 6ne drastic amendment to the present laws forecasted is that drug-sellers will be licensed, and persons with drugs illegally in their possession will be severely punished.