CRAVING FOR MORPHIA

Taranaki Daily News, 29 April 1931, Page 10

CRAVING FOR MORPHIA

WOMAN’S WEAKNESS. EXTRAORDINARY STORY. An extraordinary story of a woman’s craving for drugs was told at the Police Court at Brighton, England, recently, when Aliss Alinnie Hiscock, aged ‘43, proprietress of a nursing home, pleaded guilty to 19 summonses for possessing and procuring morphia. Defendant was fined £25 and £5 costs. She was also bound over for 12 months on condition that she placed herself under the care of a doctor and abstained from taking’drugs except on medical advice. - ,j ?'. ; Counsel for the prosecution said that between January and October last year Aliss Hiscock obtained 13,10 grains of morphia, an average of: five grains a day. She obtained her supplies from chemists and doctors in .different parts of the town by pretending it was needed for patients in her nursing home. When interviewed by the police, defendant said that she had cancer patients in the home and that doctors had not prescribed sufficient morphia . for them.. Afterwards she admitted that ehe been .taking five or six grains a day to satisfy her craving. For the defence, it was stated that defendant, who had ’been ill, would promise never to topch drugs again. The Bench expressed amazement at the ease with which enormous’.quantities of very dangerous drugs could be obtained.