SYDNEY DOPE FIENDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 560, 12 January 1929, Page 14

SYDNEY DOPE FIENDS

TRAFFIC INCREASING That drug-taking is on the up-grade in Sydney Is the opinion of several detectives.' Sergeant Roach, of Darlinghurst, Is constantly engaged in fighting the menace, and he says that it is doing incalculable harm to young girls and men in the lower walks of life. Detective Robinson, of the Pharmacy Board, is engaged in the same work, and recently he made startling disclosures of the advances which drug-traffic is making. He cited the case of one woman whose body Is a mass of punctures as a result of using the cocaine needle. Sergeant Roach says that the taking of this drug by injection is not nearly so common as the simpler method of inhaling it by sniffing it through the nose. A pathetic aspect of the situation is that young girls often pick up the fatal habit at dances, much in the way that other girls learn to smoke —from curiosity, or because they are goaded to take a “sniff” by other girls or by young men. He found on a doorstep in King’s Cross a few days ago a matchbox containing 10 or 12 tiny packets of the potent white powder. Each packet contained about three grains of cocaine, and, according to Sergeant Roach, these are sold by the drug trafficker at 6s each, although the actual value of the cocaine they contain would be about sixpence. A drug addict would require three or four such packets a night to give him “satisfaction,” but a single packet would be more than enough to “dope” a healthy man or woman.