The Stimulant Habit.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXI, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1903, Page 64

The Stimulant Habit.

Two or three recent cases have shown how largely the habit of indulging in stimulating drugs is on the increase amongst women, and certainly point to the necessity of devising some means of restricting the sale of these poisons. Of course, the root of the evil is to l»e found in the artificial conditions under which life is lived, by all dwellers in towns at all events, in these times. Regularity of any sort is unknown, and week after week is spent in one wild whirl of excitement. We overwork our brains and bodies, both in toil and pleasure. with the inevitable result of more or less collapse, and the resort to stimulants. By their aid a fictitious strength is obtained for a while, but as the system becomes accustomed to the poison more and more must be taken to produce the desired effect —and the last state of the confirmed drug drinker is a hopeless one. The habit is a difficult one to break: all the more that one of its saddest effects is the demoralisation of will power and loss of self-respect it entails. It is a growing evil that demands early and serious attention, for it has already attained proportions that would not be credited by those who have not carefully investigated the subject. Amongst men it is by no means uncommon—though it is generally alcohol that works the mischief there —but it is women who more generally yield to the •temptation to take something or other to revivify jaded nerves. It is difficult to see how the State can do much to mitigate the evil; but every woman, by example and precept, should do her best to discourage so fatal a habit as that of constant indulging in stimulating drugs.