Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1880-12-27
Monday Morning, Dec. 2z, 1880.
THE OPIUM HABIT.

THE OH1OM HABIT.
One reason why the Chinese must go is the
popular belief that all of them use opium to
obtain enjoyment and respite from care.
We do not want class of people addicted to
this degrading vice among us. In this case,
as in many others, those who live in glass
houses are throwing stones, for the use of
opium by people in this country who are not
Chinese is alarmingly prevalent and is on the
Increase.
An investigation of the use of opium in
the city of Albany has recently been made,
and its results are startling. During the last
twenty-five years the consumption of the
drug, in its different forms, has increased
from $50 pounds of opium and 375 ounces of
morphia, per annum, to $500 pounds of
opium and {, 500 ounces of nsorphia. Mean
time the city has only increased from $1,000
to $1,000 during the same time; or only
about SO, while the sale of opium has in
creased 900 per cent. and of morphia HOO
per cent or at the rate of 2O6 grains of
opium and "a grains of morphine to every
man, woman and child in the city. Even this
vast quantity does not include about 500, 900
morphia pills sold every year-each pill con-
tanning one-tenth to one-quarter of a grain of
morphine. At least one quarter of all the
opium is consumed in its native state. The
remaining three-quarters are used in making
the different opiates, the largest proportion
being used in the preparation of laudanum.
One druggist states that where, twenty five
years ago, he made it by the gallon, he now
makes it by the barrel. A quarter of GEN.
tury ago an opium eater was rarity to-day
the number is large and on the increase.
Fully four-ffths of the opium eaters of Al
bany are women.
We imagine that similar showing would
be made by an investigator in any of the
large cities of this country. And there is
also good reason to believe that New Haven
even is not relatively much behind Albany in
the use of opium. And here, as elsewhere, a
large number of those who take opium are
women.
Many reasons are assigned for the increase
of this evil Some assert that the temperance
movement is responsible for it, and it is
stated that in Maine since prohibitory law
has been enforced the increase in the use of
opium has been very marked. The ar
gument is that people will have opium if they
cannot get rum, or if rum drinking is made
unpopular. This is plausible until it is re-
membered that the use of opium has also in
creased where no special effort has been made
against the manufacture and sale of intoxi-
eating drinks. The Hartford Times thinks
the doctors are to blame for considerable
number of the opium takers 1t says: s'In
many cases they know not what else to give
their suffering patient, after dosing her with
various drugs and medicines, and so resort to
the one reliance of quieting the pain by Civ
ing an alkaloid of opium. This drug, taken
time and again, not only disorders the pa
tient's system, and adds new ills to the old,
but insidiously and rapidly begets what is
called the opium habit Once fix that upon
the patient, and it requires almost a super
human exercise of will to renounce it." Per-
haps the most satisfactory reason is to be
found in the feverish way of living which
prevails in this country, which favors the
use of all kinds of stimulants and narcotics,
including suicide narcotic which seems to
be fast increasing in popularity.