“DOPE” CURE

Southland Times, Issue 18971, 19 June 1923, Page 6

“DOPE” CURE

GROWTH OF THE DRUG HABIT IN AMERICA. AN EFFECT OF THE WAR. The drug habit is growing such a menace in the United States that the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives met and heard the evidence of 22 witnesses representing the medical profession, health officers, educational experts, insurance corporations, prison officers, welfare and brotherhood bodies, the Salvation Army, and the missionary societies, in sup port of a resolution to the President to take action (states a correspondent of the Manchester Guardian.) The action proposed is that he should urge upon the Governments cf Great Britain, Persia, and Turkey that the growth of the poppy should be limited so that the producton of opium and its derivatives may be restricted to that necessary for medicinal and scientific purposes a similar appeal is asked for to the Governments of Peru, Bolivia, and the Netherlands with regard to the caco leaves, from which cocaine is manufactured. The official report is a closely printed document of 137 pages, and reveals an extraordinary state of affairs regarding the ravages of the “dope” evil in the United States, an evil which, on the authority of a special United States Treasury Committee appointed in 1918, afflicts over a million and a quarter of the people in the United States to such an extent that they are classed as “drug addicts.” The evil is so widespread that another measure is pending in Congress that proposes that Federal and State Governments should unite in the maintenance of hospitals for the cure of these addicts. The statements made in the resolution quoting the Treasury Committee’s report, allege, in addition to the total already referred to. that “the range of the ages of addicts was reported as 12 to 75 years. Most of the heroin addicts are quite young, a portion cf them<being boys and girls under the age of 20.” It continues that “the annual production of opium is approximately 1500 tons, of which approximately 500 tons, according to the best available information, is sufficient fcr the world’s medicinal and scentific needs, and the growth of coca leaves is likewise greatly in excess of what is required for the same needs.” The resolution also animadverts upon the substitution, at the instance of the delegate for India to the League of Nations, of the words “medical and legitimate” for “medical and scientific” in the resolution sent forward by the League's Opium Commission regarding the restriction of production.