SYDNEY’S DRUG TRAFFIC.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 61

SYDNEY’S DRUG TRAFFIC.

A GEOWING MENACE. POLICE TAKE ACTION. DRUG BUREAU ESTABLISHED. (F.iom Ooh Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 25. While the distance of Australia from more densely populated countries prevents the drug evil from assuming the proportions attained in the United States, Britain, Asia, and European countries, the menace of “dope” in this city has grown sufficiently large to warrant action on the part of the police and to justify a special effort to prevent its further growth. This is the conclusion reached by the New South Wales Commissioner of Police (Mr Mitchell). His first action has been the establishment of a drug bureau as a branch of the Police Department’s activities, in which the aid of specially-deputed detectives will be bent towards the detection of traffickers and the reformation of addicts. The commissioner also hopes to have attached to the bureau a leading medical expert in order that it can be guided in tne handling of cases. “We know comparatively little of the misery and destitution that the drug habit can cause,” said Mr Mitchell, in announcing the formation of the bureau, “and it is our aim to prevent its increase, and to lead addicts back to health.” That the evil is one that can be tackled on more comprehensive lines than at present is recognised by the commissioner. He said that with the formation of the bureau and the amending of the Police Offenders Act to strengthen the hands of the police, the police hoped to do more effective work. Every person who could be saved from sinking into the abyss would constitute a justification. Mr Mitchell recently had a tour abroad, and the present step is taken as the result of some of his experiences overseas. He found the drug evil in otfc r countries like a cancer growth, ravaging the morals and health of thousands or people. One determination he formed was that the people of this country should be forearmed against the evil assuming

gr*B proportions here, and probably hiq leid will be followed in other especially Victoria. The drug traffic is no| easy to detect, as it is not, like drunkenness, for instance, a showy, or speetaeular, sin. If a man becomes drunk, becomes bellicose or unsociable, and goes out and punches a policeman, you know exactly where to find him next day—in the Police Court. But the drug addict, casting himself in the waters of Lethe, in order to blot out everything, just sinks slowly out of sight. Rarely is he found in the courts. The drug habit is not always inspired by viciousness in a man’s character. In the first stage, drugs are a short cut to relief from physical suffering or mental stress, and then by gradations there grows a craving for them. “There is no more powerful demoralising agency to-day,” said a leading Sydney doctor, “than the illicit drug traffic. The drink traffic is only a bagatelle compared with it.” Gaol for the drug trafficker and sympathy and special treatment for the addict will be the policy of the new police activity. One drastic amendment to the present laws forecasted is that drug sellers will be licensed, and persons with drugs illegally in their possession will be severely punished.