COCAINE FOR EGYPTIANS

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1930, Page 11

COCAINE FOR EGYPTIANS

HARMLESS STAGE PASSED NATION ADDICTED TO DRUGS r—! BITTER SPEECH AT GENEVA By Telegraph— Brass Assn.— -Copy-right. London, Jan. 28. How Egypt has passed from a comparatively harmless stage of hasheesh consumption to cocaine, which a Gieek chemist, who is now imprisoned, introduced after the war, and later to heroin, with at present 500,000 addicts, was related by General Russell, formerly Deputy Director of Medical Services, before the drug committee of the League of Nations, reports the Geneva correspondent of 'the Times. . •

General Russell- said it was a great mistake to imagine -that, only the idle rich, demi-mondainos and shim dwellers were addicts;, the chief sufferers were peasants and land workers. Before the arrival of cocaine and heroin there was never, a more cheerful and-hard-working community than.the-Egyptian peasants; now the smallest village held victims. The flower of the nation’s youth was ‘addicted to drugs. Was it fair, he asked, to allow Europe to pour tons of poison into Egypt? If only the committee knew the abject misery of scores of thousands of addicts they would lose no time in acting. The' European delegates unanimously applauded Gen'eral Russell’s efforts. The Swiss delegates especially thanked him for unearthing the Swiss factories. General Russell said the price' of heroin had risen in four years from £75 for a kilogram (2 l-51b) .to £3OOO. Following a strong plea for action by the British and Italian Governments, the committee has begun to study in detail’ a scheme limiting the output of drugs to certified medical requirements.