Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-08-11

and they go everywhere-the means of
indulging in the habit are to be obtained.
0ae victim makes a score of converts to
the practice, and those who begin to smoke
merely for amusement discover too late
that they are slaves to the demand.
OF course there is a great deal of secrecy
about this practice. Those who have been
led into it and have been enslaved en-
deaver to conceal their vice as closely as
possible. In the cities there are hundreds
of young men occupying responsible po-
sitions who have fallen victims to their
taste for experiment. Some Of them think
20 cure themselves at times by dropping
opium smoking and substituting hypo-
dernic injections of morphine, but their
last state is worse than their first. Very
few who allow themselves to be persuaded
to try pipe of opium have any knowledge
of the danger they are running. But there
| is no vice at once so insidious and so dead
| ", The man who has once habituated
himself to opium in any of it's forms finds
shortly that he cannot abandon the prac-
tice without the exercise of an amount of
will power which he has generally ceased
to possess, and the endurance of an amount
of physical suffering which he cannot face.
The craving for drink is a mere bagatelle
to that for opium. The victim of the
opium habit soon becomes so shaken that
he cannot do anything until he has had a
| fresh dose of the drug. 1t steadily saps the
intellect and the constitution together.
1t disorders the hepatic functions, de.
moralizes the stomach, destroys the appe-
tite, paralyzes the will, stupefes the men,
ory, and makes complete wrecks of those
who are given over to it.
1t is true that some men have succeeded
in breaking the habit, but it is easier for
the hereditary dipsomaniac to cure himself
of his passionate craving for alcoholic
stimulants than it is for the opium victim
to overcome his tyrant. Where, more.
over, the habit is contracted by boys, the
cure is more difficult than ever. In these
cases the growth of the body is arrested,
morbid conditions are set up, pulmonary
diseases are often induced, and life is short
ened by direct cutting off OF the supply
of energy. The lads who smoke opium are
pale, fabby-Aeshed, an@mic, languid,
hollow.eyed, and generally stupid and in
different to all around them. Opium de-
stroys the moral sense by it's action upon
the ganglionic centers. 1t disorganizes the
brain, and arrests the formation of new
convolutions in the cerebral hemispheres.
1t is in fact the most utterly fatal and
ruinous habit to which man can become
attached, and if its extension is not
checked the indications are that it will
prove the source of more misery in Cali
fornia than all other vices put together.
Nor is it easy to accomplish radi-
cal reform in this matter. The Chinese
quarters are everywhere the centers of in.
fiction, but it is VIGOROUSLY difficult to
prevent the Chinese from using the drug,
and when they can use it they can also
supply it to others. The occasional cap
lures by the police of white boys and men
in Chinese opium dens represent but very
small part of the current opium smoking.
OF late it has been the practice for white
opium smokers to use the drug at their
own houses or lodgings, and in this case
discovery is almost impossible. 1t may be
doubtful also whether even if it were posi-
bic to stop the smoking everywhere at
once, the victims of the habit would not
have recourse to some other form Of the
drug, such as morphine, which it would be
out of the question to trace. In fact it
seems as if the only practicable method of
reform was to appeal to the victims them
selves; to tell them what danger they are
mourning; to point out to them the terrible
and inevitable effects of persistence in the
practice and to stimulate their will power
to resistance.
This is perhaps q forlorn hope, but un-
less the importation of opium by the Chi
nese can be stopped we fear it is the only
means of relief available. At present
many lads and young men are uncon-
sciousiy laying the foundations of disease
and mental and physical degradation by
thoughtlessly INDUCING in this calamitous
| practice. They should realize that there
is no halfway place with the OPIUM
smoker, unless he is an Oriental. The
habit once formed can only be broken by
the most tremendous exertions, and very
few have the energy remaining to make
such an effort. There is no I" fun in
opium smoking. 1t is literal death to the
smokers, and they ought to know this.
Whoever desires to enjoy health and an
average life must keep away from this
fatal practice resolutely, and determine
above all things never to make a begin
MING of IL