St. Paul daily globe., 1889-06-16
THE OPIUM HABIT.

THE OPIUM HABIT.
If they were obtainable. proper
compilation of statistics on the opium
habit would furnish a startling revela-
ton. They would show that opium is
to-day wrecking more lives and destroy
ing more homes in this country than all
other forms of intemperance and diSsi-
patton. 1t is singular fact that, while
we profess to hold the effete races of the
old world in contempt, we are permit
ting. and even encouraging, the growth
of a vice that caused their deterioration,
and will soon bring us down to their
level. The Turks and the Chinese are
the original opium fiends, and yet our
revenue statistics for the last few years
show that opium consumption is not
only increasing rapidly in this country,
but that the amount consumed is nearly
equal to the quantity used in any one of
the old countries where the opium habit
is so old as to be almost constitutional
with the population. When we remem-
ber that there is now in this country an
annual consumption of from three to
five millions of dollars worth of this
drug, and that perhaps not one-twen-
teth of this amount is needed for Or
binary medical purposes, we can form
some idea of the growth of the habit,
and of the dangerous results that are
likely to occur from its continued use.
1t is within the bounds of truth and rea-
son to say that opium is more danger
Gus enemy to American society than all
the other vices combined. 1t is all the
more dangerous because it is insidious.
One result of so much temperance
legislation has been to encourage the
growth of the opium habit. Law and
custom have made alcoholic intoXica-
ton disreputable, and consequently
many persons with a morbid taste for
opium because it is vice less easy of
detection. But the doctors are. per-
haps, more responsible for the growth
of the habit than any other agency.
The drug affords such quick relief for
pain that the physician is too often
tempted to resort to its use without
thought as to the dangerous conse-
quences that are liable to follow. Some
times, too. its use is convenient shield
for the doctors ignorance, for by quiet
ing his patient he creates the impression
that he has helped the case. Thus it
has come to pass that the opium pill
and the morphine powder play tie act
i've part in modern medical practice
that the lancet used to do when blood
letting was considered indispensable to
patients recovery. But perhaps the
most prOf1igate as we'll as most repre-
hensible use of opium is in the treat
ment Of inmates of the insane asy-
lums. 1t has quicker effect in
restraining the violence of a raving
maniac than the straight jacket or the
crib bed. and in consequence the nurses
and attendants are provided with an
abundant supply, and they use it with
out any sort of discretion. We do not
undertake to say that this opium treat
ment is adopted in all institutions where
the insane are cared for, but we do know
whereof we affirm when we say that it
is practiced in great meny of them.
The use of opium produces an exhilara-
ton and pleasant flights of fancy or
dreams, and thus it becomes very easy
for person once placed under its influ-
ence to acquire the habit of using it.
Opium is more dangerous than alco-
hol. in that the appetite for it is more
readily quickened and less easily re-
strained. 1t is more dangerous, too. be-
cause of it's more disastrous effects on
the human system, and still greater
evil because of its facility for bunting
the moral senses. If the taste for alco-
hol and the effects of its use can be
transmitted from generation to genera
ton, it is reasonable to suppose that the
opium habit and its evil consequences
are likewise hereditary. 1t is in the
light of this horrible fact we contem-
plate the possible degeneracy of the
American people into an indolent race,
with no higher moral or mental quail
ties than are possessed by the Turks
and the Chinese. And in the face of
such danger is it not worth the while
of our social retormers to give their at
tention to the necessity for securing
legislation to restrict the Importation
of opium and to regulate it's use?