HABITUAL DRUNKARDS ACT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 13

HABITUAL DRUNKARDS ACT.

A DECIDED DEFECT. (Fjtou Oub Own Cobbespondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 6. A case heard yesterday in the Chlistchurch Magistrate's Court revealed a defect in the Habitual Drunkards Act, which demands the attention of Parliament. An unfortunate man (says the Press) was charged with drunkenness and the breach of a prohibition order. Apparently when as a prohibited peison he cannot procure drink he falls back on drugs, and he has acquired the habit of drinking chlorodyne. Conscious of his own weakness, he begged the magistrate to commit "him to the Inebriates' Home on Pakatoa Island for two years, in the hope that the enforced abstention from both drink and drugs might saw him from the terrible consequences of this failing. To come under the provisions of the Habitual Drunkards Act, however, a man must be convicted of drunkenness j three times in nine months. The man before the court yesterday has only two convictions against his name, and the magistrate, unable to grant his request, could do no more for him than to tell him that the best thing he could do was to get drunk and be arrested again. He [ would then be an habitual drunkard in ! the eyes of the law, and could he dealt vfith as desired. It is a seiious defect in an act which is otherwise a useful measure that it makes no provision for the committal to an inebriates' home of men who, though not legally "habitual drunkards," may recognise that in being placed beyond the means of yielding to temptation lies their only hope of reform. The law enables a man to take out a prohibition order against himself. It should permit him, if he wishes, tb take still stronger measures to help him fight the craving for drink or drugs. Parliament should certainly amend {he law in the ' direction of enabling magistrates to commit to Pakatoa anyone who vohmtaiilv and for sufficient reason wishes to work out his own reform.