IN STRANGLEHOLD OF DOPE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 722, 2 June 1923, Page 9

IN STRANGLEHOLD OF DOPE

AMAZING REVELATIONS OF DRUG HABIT. ON CITIZENS OF UNITED STATES. Almost incredible revelations of the grip of llio drug 1 habit on the citizens of the United States urc contained in an extraordinary While Paper received in London from Washington recently. Its official character gives the document a startling significance. The evidence is furnished by medical men, health officers, prison officials, and Education authorities. One glaringly simple statement illustrates the tenor of their investigations. “ Ten per cent of the taxicab drivers in Chicago alone are stated to be dope fiends! Or, in a wider generalisation, the total number of drug addicts in the United States is stated in a public health service report quoted in the Wliite Paper is nearly 1,388.600. /‘lt is a rare occurrence,” fays the report, “to find these addicts amongst the immigrants. The great majority are American born. Among the victims of the dread habit are preachers and profligates, professional men and business magnates, and women of every station in life. So impressed are the committee on foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives with the extent of the evil in their midst that they are pressing on the President to urge on the Governments of other nations, including Great Britain, the immediate necessity of limiting the production of narcotic drugs, morphia, heroin, cocaine, and the others. PRODUCTION TOO LARGE. While 100 tons of opium would be ample for the medical industries of all countries, the annual world production of opium is approximately 1500 tons for export, and between 500 and 1000 tons for internal consumption in India, Turkey and Persia. Ninety per cent of the drug was used in the United States for other than legitimate purposes. America/) consumes far more opium per head than other countries for which records are available. Its figure is twelve times as large as that for Franco and 72 times larger than that for Austria. Since 1919, the medical officer of Sing Sing Prison stated that the number of drug addicts under his charge had increased 900 per cent, and 75 per cent of the drug users admitted to prison take heroin. A Salvation Army official cited a case of a “dope fiend” nuclei - 14 years of age who was wanted for manslaughter. Other witnesses before the committee brought forward evidence of drug-taking of those still at school. Extensive drug smuggling is carried on between the outside world and prisoners. Warders who cun get narcotics at from £4 to £lO an ounce will sell to prisoners at 6s or 8s for one-eighth of a grain, up to £3 a grain. At this rate they can make

from £6OO to £I2OO an ounce profit. 1 At Atlanta Prison a room is filled with all sorts of appliances for the administration of drugs that the warders have taken from the prisoners. These include cunningly adapted medicine droppers and safety pins, DEFEATING THE DOCTOR. The Chicago Commissioner of Health, to prevent the inmate of the Longdalo Hospital getting any supply of drugs, prohibited anything coming in from outside except magazines. lie soon found that friends outside would tear the leaves of those magazines, sprinkle the morphine into the base where the leaf was attached, and then the leaf. Patients deprived of hypodermic syringes made little slits into their hands into which the drug was shaken. The committee are anxious in their report to dispute that the increase in drug taking follows the restriction on alcohol.