MAKE NO MORE COCAINE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18791, 29 May 1923, Page 6

MAKE NO MORE COCAINE

The facts of the abase of cocaine are notorious. In Montreal last November I found the horrible business at its worst and showing no possibility of improvement; all the concerted measures ot police, excise and health authorities were futile. In Canada and the Imited States, in Fiance and in our own country, new legislation is pioposed, all based on ♦.}».. well-nigh hopeless plan of local a<tion. If an’vone could question the principle for which the students of the subject have Icng contended, international contig at the source, the facts of Montreal, thousands of miles away from the European faotoiiea. would persuade him. But ,so long as the drug is demanded ly oculists and dentists for legitimate purposes, the problem of control, even under international agreement, is cxeedingly difficult—especially if we recognise the demands ot unregistered dental practitioners. The better way would be to lind or make substitutes which serve all good put poses and are incapable of abuse, being destitute uf the action upon brain and emotions which renders cocaine so dangerous.

So long ago as 1917, when a , committee was appointed to study the subject in England, Sir William Bayliss, F.R.S., the world-famous physiologist, who was the one scientific member of that body, expressed the view, in a separate m emorandum, that substitutes existed which rendered the use of cocaine superfluous (Cd. 8189. H.M. Stationery Office, Kingsway, Price Id.)

Novocain is the most widely useful of such substitutes and Sir William Bayliss based his view on the evidence of leading dentists regart.ing its use. But it is scarcely applicable for the needs of the oculist. In Chicago, a group of chemists have worked for some years with the object of constructing the much-do sired compound. They have succeeded. It has a long chemical name, in no sense a secret, but not needing quotation here. For short, it is called butyn. It has been tested and used cn a large scale for considerable periods, and recently (“ British Medical Journal,” Jan. 13). a valuable report on its action appeared in this country. It completes the case, not merely for the internationally controlled manufacture and disviibution of cocaine, but for what I now definitely advocate, the international abolition of the manufacture of this drug. lor this purpose public opinion in, say, Peru, and other countries where the coca plant is grown and in Germany and Switzerland, where the alkaloid is extracted, and in our’own country, must direct and empower its representatives on the Opium Committee of the League of Nations —whereon Germany and the United States are happily represented. Our own League of Nations Union is doing fine work in support of the international principle; but my argument now is not merely for control, but for abolition of manufacture of this appallingly dangerous and superfluous drug.