SLEEP PILLS IN U.S.A.

Grey River Argus, 19 May 1944, Page 6

SLEEP PILLS IN U.S.A.

OF JAPANESE ORIGIN. NEW YORK, May 16. Sentencing Murray Steir, a chemist, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years for selling oyer fifty thousand sleep producing pills without -a prescription, Judge Ha'ckenburgh stated, in special sessions, that the Jaoanese Government flooded the United States with these pills. They were habit-forming capsules known to chemists as sodium pento barbital. ~ , _ . - Judge Hackenburg added: I have said it before, and say it again, the Japanese Government smuggles the capsules into the'United States. When I said it a long time ago I was told to keep quiet. A health inspector said the pills, which the users say induce beautiful dreams, are worse than heroin. A department received many complaints concerning wide use of the pills from hospitals and the Narcotic Bureau.