Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1900-06-27
COKE F1ENDs AT BURLINGTON.

Cocaine Habit Reaches Alarming
Proportions Among Golorcd Men.
Burlington, j une Pit will be a rev
citation TO the great majority of readers
and especially to the white people, to-
learn that the Very large sporting ele-
ment among the colored people in Bur-
lington Iby which special reference is
made TO the young men), is largely adj
dicted 10 the cocaine habit or, as the
phrase goes. are coke. fiends
lnduiring IN doctors offices and drug
stores confirmed a tip given yesterday
toa reporter. 1t was learned that the
practice Of using this poisonous drug
with intent To produce a sort of intoxi-
cation is Very general among the young
sr coiored men. They Sometimes take
the drug hypodermically. bu, that is the
Exception on account of the trouble and
the added expense of a gun" for the
shot. The almost universal habit is to
take a pinch of cocaine powder and
snuff ii UP the nostrils.. The effect is
leHhilarating for the moment, not un-s
ikea drink of whisky, the8users of the
drug say, but ii is far more destructive
II the moral and physical being than
Iwhiskey. for in a short time the coke
habit becomes fixed upon those who in.
iulge in ii and then it is only a question
of time when the victim dies or becomes
a mental and moral wreck.
The young colpfed men of Burlington.
addicted to the habit say they got the
Knowledge of it and the liking for it in
Ileokuk, or that keokuk negroes
brought it here and they say that that
towns alive With coke fiends
1t is said that in Memphis, Tennes see.
the police find a dead Niger every day
whose death was from no other cause
than doping With cocaine.
One druggist who was yesterday
asked about the matter. said every eve
ming one or more colored men asked for
l5cocaine in his place of business but"
said he. we do not sell il to them; we
fire them OUT Butt is evident there
are drug stores in town where the pro-
prietors are not so scrupulous, for every
might there are scores of young negroes
who indulge in the fatal habit.
In this connection the following ex-.
| tract from the Journal, a medical pub
llication of Chicago,sis apropos. II says:
The negroes in some part ofgthe south
| are reported as being addicted to a new
form of vice-that of Cocaine shifting"
| or the coke habit" as 1t appears to
1 have this name also. a negro. it is said,
Twill buy 5 cents worth of cocaine.which
is sold in aneat little paper box for such
purposes, and, taking it in the. old-fash-
lioned way Of snuff-takers, proceed to in
dulge in a coke drunk The effects are
described az much like those of an
ordinary whisky drunk: some cocaine
"sniffers" are quarrelsone, some happy
and Indifferent like the opium smokers.
while the intoxication lasts. ii appears
even that the habit is going to succeed
| to the recognized legal rights of whisky,
as we read that one community licenses
the sale, allowing, however. druggists
to sell the alkaloid on physicians pre-
scriptions. but imposing heavy penal
ties on the doctor who prescrbes it for
other than patients requiring il medi-
cinally In this there is progress in a
line not altogether encouraging. 1t is
a pity that anything further in the way
of intoxicants should receive legal rec
ognition. The, world has heretofore got
along without cocaine exhilaration,s and
the necessity Of it for the negroes of
Kentucky. even could it be confined to
them, can not be reasonably urged. The
precedent is bad, and it is to be hoped
the custom will not be followed else
where.
The law holds both maker and cir
culator of counterfeit equally guilty.
\ The dealer " hn sells Wvo,1 a RI i,