Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-07-01
DANGER FROM OPIUM
Victim of Drug Habit Most Miserable
 Creature.

Victim of Drug Habit Most Miserable
 Creature.
 "An insane desire to use opium and other drugs of like nature appears to have taken possession of the Ameri- can people, said a reputable druggist while speaking to a Washington Star reporter of the deaths of Sybil Sander Son and Wanda de Boncza in Paris by the opium route. "I am no alarm1st, but speak plainly and truthfully when 1 say that believe it will be necessary for congress to take some rigid and heroic measures to prevent the spread of this sure-death mania, for I think it can rightly be termed a mania Our people are drinking and snifing every 1 and anything that will give temporary | relief to tired feeling and shattered nerves-opium, laudanum, strychina, | salol, tincture ginger, valerian, atropia, bromtda, chloroform, choral, cocaine, ether, paregoric and, in fact, every drug which can be named, but, of course, opium leading the list, save in some of the southern states, where CO., catne sn1f1ng has become so common that rich and poor use it alike, and many cities and towns have made stringent laws against its sale.
 That the situation is serious cannot l be doubted, and in my business as a prescription druggist I am in a position 1 to see the rapid advance the evil Is making. As I stated, opium leads the list, and by examining the reports of | foreign commerce of the United States you will see that our imports of the | deadly drug increase with each year.
 The use of opium and other nar- cotics in practice is dangerous, very, and have lost the trade of one or two high-toned physicians by being bold enough to assert my belief and asking them to let up in their ruin producing prescriptions. I had rather sacrifice my business than to have the trade of men who are careless of human life and happiness. The hypodermic syringe and morphine pills are doing their work faster than the drink evil, and [ regret to say practicing physi- clans are largely responsible, for they are prescribed for almost any and every il1
 Naturally. the occasional use of simpler drugs pills. drops, snuffs and other nerve settlers and sleep producers | leads up to the use of opium. but in 1 one to blame but their own foolish | selves, and they deserve little or no sympathy for having formed the habit a habit which not one in hundred ever succeeds in breaking off. There 1 is nothing under the sun as difficult to break off as the opium habit. and | there is no slave more to be pitied. it making them wrecks physically and l m l thieves. and. even worse. The most miserable wretch on earth is the opium fiend. and they will tell you so. for they are the. most confiding creatures on earth. But once the habit fastens itself there is no letting loose, and opium they must have and will have l regardless of consequences. and I have | met with many fearful evidences of | total depravity on the part of men and women who have come here to get the drug. It was only last week that a former we'll known young man who stood we'll socially and financially brought me a small diamond ring and | offered it as pledge for one ounce of l opium, I got him to acknowledge that | it was his wife's engag cement ring, and I knew him so well-knew that the habit was so firmly rooted-that I gave him an allowance of the stuff, and he 1 promised to take the ring back to his wife. His promise was broken, for l have since learned that he got a second supply of opium for the ring at another drug store. Men and women come in here with almost every imaginable arti- cle to pledge for opium. and in a num- Der of cases I know that the article has either been stolen from their homes | or somewhere else. I could have a safe full of valuab1es were disposed to do that kind of business. It is after night fall that the opium fiend is at his worst, and then it is that the druggist and | prescription clerk must be on his guard for an opium fiend is danger ous customer when refused the drug, especially if he has gone few hours beyond his 'period' that is, the time for taking an injection or smoke. have had them to smash things right and left in this store. Poor devils. they are not responsible, and I have never yet l had one of them arrested.
 "While I am talking it might not be out of place to say that I have every reason for believing that the increase of the number of opium users is coming from the better class of society, too. That tired feeling on the part of so l cfety people brings about resort to small amounts of opium or some other | nerve settler, and eventually-and 1t | doesn't take long, either-there's anoth- CT miserable soul. The middle and lower classes satisfy themselves as long as they can with some of the more common and cheaper narcotics and it is only when something more effective is demanded that opium is resorted to. .''