METHYLATED SPIRITS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20338, 20 August 1929, Page 7

METHYLATED SPIRITS.

PREVALENCE OF DRINKING.

A MELBOURNE PROBLEM

The rapidly-increasing number of methylated spirit drinking addicts is causing considerable anxiety to police officials in Melbourne. These pests, says tlio Argus, have always been a source of worry to tho police, and some Lime ago a campaign was launched to rid the gardens in tho vicinity of (he city of these human wrecks. After plain-clothes constables cleared them out of the Exhibition Oardens they moved to East Melbourne, but the police heard of the change of rendezvous, and they were' kept on the move. For some time there were few cases '<f methylated spirit drinking reported, but during the last few months it is evident, irom the complaints of residents, that tho habit is increasing in the industrial subUlti.S.

An inquiry made at police stations ntCollingwood, Richmond,. Carlton, Fitzroy and other industrial suburbs elicited the information that (he police are. kept busy in dealing with offenders. At Fitzroy on a recent Sunday no fewer than 13 men and women were in-rested in one day. This is stated to havo been a record number.

A sub-officer of police with many years' experience in the suburbs, discussing the evil, sairl tho position was becoming really alarming. Persons habituated to the pernicious habit had little difficulty in obtaining bottles of methylated spirits from grocers and chemists, oven on Sundays. According to Jaw, bottles containing methylated spirits were labelled "not- to be taken inwardly." but this, of course, did not deter thc'liahituals from sampling lis contents. Although some of tho drinkers break the raw spirit, down with soft drinks and wine, a, great many of them are quite content, to drink it neat. Recently a police officer was passing n drinking fountain on a children's playing reserve in Nicholson Street, Carlton, when lie was horrified to see a group of men, obviously of the "down arid out" cl.iss, mixing "quantities of methylHted spirit with water, which they drank out of a vessel used by the children.

.According to a statement mado by one police official men who have become confirmed methylated spirit drinkers have ceased to get any "kick" out of tho drink, and are now addicted to petrol. 'When a man who was brought to tho Fitzroy watch-house recently was searched the police were amazed to find a bottle of petrol in his hip pocket. Ho admitted that he was strongly inclined to petrol, and said that he had'got tired of drinking methylated spirits. It is also stated by the polico that there aro now many methylated spirit drinkers in the country districts.

In dealing with the methylated spirit drinkers, the police aro not given wide powers by tho exist,inc laws. A person cannot he charged with drinking methylated spirits under the Poisons Act. Which was passed several years ago, until he, or she, is actually caught red-handed. Even then the offender can only bo brought before the Court on summons. A policeman cannot arrest a methylated spirit drinker, no matter how evident it is that lie or she has imbibed of tho spirit, unless he is helplessly drunk; Tn fining offenders magistrates, the police state, do not show consistency in regard to the offence. Somo magistrates aro moro lenient than others, and in some cases they will not make an order for imprisonment. Oenorally tho fines range from £1 to £5, in default distress. Very often the police have to search for days for tho defaulters, and then they arc obliged to servo them with a show-cause summons.