SERIOUS DRUG MENACE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 258, 1 November 1932, Page 8

SERIOUS DRUG MENACE

SCOTLAND YARD’S PROBLEM GREAT EVIL ORGANISATION. MASTER-MIND AT WORK. Scotland Yard is faced to day with the greatest drug traffic problem it has experienced since the hey-day of Brilliant Chang a few years ago. The police are confronted by an organisation worth thousands of pounds and with connections in all parts of the world. Scores of hitherto clean-living, young men and women are being grasped by the tentacles of the drug octopus. Once in its grip there is little chance of their ever escaping. One of its saddest victims was a beautiful former leader of fashions, who committed suicide by jumping from a window in Mayfair. London. She had taken drugs for 15 years and had attempted to commit suicide by drug taking. Inquiries made by a Sunday Chronicle correspondent show how real are the difficulties with which Scotland Yard is faced. Heroin and •cocaine are the drugs most in evidence, the reason is that they are easy to export and carry about. The drugs are produced in large quantities on the Continent and shipped to all parts of the world. One of the most lucrative markets is London where the consumption has increased to an enormous extent within the past year. Lurking in the background of London’s gayer social set is a master mind who controls the traffic in the capital. He is the local representative of a world wide organisation and is supplied with unlimited funds. Who he is, nobody knows, but he has undoubtedly occupied the throne previously held bv the notorious trafficker, Brilliant Chang. Serving under his master-mind are a number of lieutenants who act as his distribution agents. They, in turn, pass the drugs to the sellers, who arc in constant contact with the victims. The sellers comprise all classes, a large percentage being waiters and waitresses in disreputable night clubs, while many paid dancing partners in these clubs are known to transfer “dope” in the course of a dance. Time after time Scotland Yard catches one of the sellers red-handed, life is punished, but he never reveals (the identity of the. master-mind. The pay is too great and there is always a job waiting for him when he comes out of prison. His fine is always paid by the organisation. Here is the greatest of all obstacles the Yard has to fight: against. The profit on drugs is so large that (lie organisation can afford to pay thousands of pounds each year in fines.