DRUG ADDICT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21559, 23 January 1940, Page 8

DRUG ADDICT

youths before the court SYDNEY, December 27. An amazing story of two brothers who had experimented on themselves with morphia and heroin was told in a suburban police court. In an alleged statement Edward Plavin, 18, said he had reached the stage where he was taking about six grains of heroin and five grains of morphia a day. Peter Plavin, 19, was represented as saying he was taking 20 minims of liquid morphine three or four times a day. At present they are awaiting trial on charges of breaking and entering—it is alleged that they stole drugs from the Royal North Shore and Balmain Hospitals. In the meantime, for having drugs in their possession, they were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and the magistrate who sentenced them suggested that they should be given special medical care. Tortures of the Addict Each youth is a confirmed drugtaker, according to the police, and on their own alleged admissions, each has suffered the tortures of the addict. Without any medical training, they possess extraordinary knowledge of drugs. It is believed that they first took drugs in Germany, where they spent four years of their childhood, and developed a queer fondness for the fantastic as books found in their room showed. In the court, a detective drug expert said that their arms were in a shocking state from the use of hypodermic syringes, which had not been properly sterilised. Evidence was given that their knowledge of drugs and their use came from study of special text books, usually only in the possession of medical men. Constable Fisher said that he saw the brothers in a city street and told them that he had taken possession of bottles of drugs at their home. Peter Plavin then said: “We were experimenting. We got into the dispensary and got the stuff.” Edward said: “We read about the drugs in books, and it interested us. We thought we would get some and try it out. We had to get the stuff, no matter where we got it. We had terrible hangovers.” A Fateful Experiment A statement from Edward Plavin to Fisher and read in court said: “I decided, to break and enter the outpatients’ department at Royal North Shore Hospital and obtain certain chemicals. I studied the properties of these chemicals and thought it would be a sensation to try them out. After I had obtained them I prepared the chemicals for use, and later took them. I was amazed at the properties these chemicals had on the human system. “I kept on taking them, but before I knew it I had become addicted to them. I took the drugs by hypodermic injections in the arm. I suppose I took about six grains of heroin a day and five of morphia. The last time I took them I had about 80 minims of liquid morphine-hydrate. “When I had used all the narcotics in my possession I found that without them I could not live. I could not sleep at night, and I suffered badly from spasms in the spinal regions. I took an antidote—trophil sulphate—by hypodermic injection, but this did not ease my terrible illness. It only made me worse. I was unable to walk for several days. Increased Doses “After a week’s duration of weakness and spasms I decided once more to obtain the narcotics. I got some tincture of morphine, but I found on taking tests, that it contained potassium bromide to counteract the narcotic effect, and I therefore isolated the morphine from the tincture. I could not stop taking it. “Day by day the doses increased until I was taking 60 minims six times a day. It was then that a cyst on my back began to pain terribly, and I drank aqueous ether. This relieved the pain greatly, but made me faint and ill. I still had to take the narcotics. All the antidotes I knew of failed to ease me.”