ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18678, 7 April 1924, Page 9

ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFIC.

UNITED STATES PRISONS.' . v ■ ; -v • .«*" /*' SENSATIONAL REVELATION. EX-WARDEN'S EVIDENCE. DARING OPIUM SMUGGLERS HEROIN INDUCING CRIME. By Telegraph—Press Association— t. (Received 8.45 p.m.) A. tad N.Z. WASHINGTON. April 5. A sensational revelation of a traffic in opium within the Federal penitentiaries was made to the Senate Committee, which is considering a measure to prohibit the importation of the drug in a crude state into the United States. Mr. J. K. Dych, formerly warden of the Atlanta,, penitentiary, declared that he had attempted to eradicate the conditions existing, but had encountered opposition from Mr. H. H. yotaw, superintendent of Federal prisons, and a brother-in-law of the late Mr. Harding. Mr. Votaw had told him that the resultant publicity would be distasteful to Mr. Handing and Mr. H. M. Daugherty, the then AttorneyGeneral, and that it would disrupt the prison discipline. Mr. Daugherty agreed with this view. Nevertheless Mr. Dych's efforts had resulted in the conviction of two dealers. However hundreds of others who continued to sell the drug in the prisons were unmolested, the witness declared, causing many of the prisoners to become addicted to it. . Mr. Dych explained that the drug was smuggled into the prison in mail matter, food, and holiday gift packages. He added that his activities caused his transfer from the wardenship to prohibition work. Mr. William Burns, chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, confirmed Mr. Dych's testimony. He declared that Mr. Votaw ordered him to stop an investigation into the illicit drug traffic in prisons. This witness added that he had appealed vainly to his superior officers in the Department of Justice. He had said that if an inquiry were permitted he would apprehend the chief traffickers and stop the traffic. The latter was, he asserted, still proceeding as a phase of the activity of a nation-wide illicit drug syndicate. _ Prominent physicians, who testified before the committee, advocated the suppression of the use of heroin in the practice of medicine. It was stated that heroin is a most vicious habit-forming narcotic and a cause fox the increase of crime in the United States. K *'' ' j A physician attending the largest prison in the United States declared that many men commit larceny and even murder .to obtain money to purchase this drug, and the measure would effectively suppress its manufacture since pharmaceutical companies alone ' are able to make it, and are easily controlled. Another medical witness affirmed that heroin is the most * vital men&ce to public health and morals in the United States.