DRUG HABIT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 16 June 1923, Page 9

DRUG HABIT

VICTIMS IN AUSTRALIA

' SALESMAN SENT TO PRISON SYDNEY, June 7. Hitherto the alarming spread of the drug habit in America and Europe lias left the great Australian cities comparatively untouched, but in recent months in Melbourne and Sydney there has been evidence that an insidious traffic has been opened up, as a result of which many women in the slum areas have been morally and physically degraded (writes The 'Post’s, Sydney correspondent). The police, especially in Melbourne, where the traffic has been most evident, are making strenuous efforts to track down those who are conducting it. At least one agent of this menacing trade has been laid by the heels in the person of a dealer named Henry M'Ewan—a man 40 years of age, who was sentenced at the Melbourne City Court to six months’ imprisonment on a charge of having been found in possession of a deleterious drug. Tim police evidence was that (M’Ewan was found to be in possession of a cigarette packet containing 10 small phials of a powder-like substance which. when questioned, be described as “snow” (a familiar appellation for cocaine in the form in which it is dispensed). He admitted that be bad been tho packets for about two months fo women at 2s each, and that lie bought them from a certain chemist.

For months the Melbourne police bad been puzzled at the condition of women, who bad been found in bouses in the city, and laying out in the parks- and other places in a dazed and .stupefied condition. It was thought at first that the women were victims of tho opium habit, and the police kept a close watch upon houses occupied by Chinese, but nothing was seen to support the theory that opium was being supplied to the women by the Chinese. After weeks of investigation, the police found a woman in a house in Little Lonsdale street, who had just been released from goal. She told them that her depraved condition was due to her having contracted the “snow” habit. She addeef that women bought the drug in packets from a man who visited the slum areas: also that it could be bought in a certain shop in the city. Inquiries were made and the police found that “snow” bad been introduced into Australia by a man who bad been trafficking in the drug in Great Britain. They believe that the man came to Australia some years ago, and that lie recently visited’ London to obtain further supplies of cocaine, which lie smuggled into Australia on his return. The cocaine was then prepared in the _ form of “snow,” and sold in the various States by agents.