The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-07
COCAINE ON INCREASE
sNIFFLING A MENACE TO NEGROES
 OF NEW ORLEANS.
Harvest Is Being Reaped by Unserupu- lous Druggists, Who Violate the Law in Allowing the Ignorant to Purchase the Deadly
 Drug.
leans Times Democrat.

New Orleans Times Democrat.
 Of all the dangers common in large cities of this country, that of inhaling cocaine, or "sniffing coke" as it is more commonly called, is probably the commonest and one that is gaining in popularity daily.
 Coke shifting is prevalent in New Or leans, and there are thousands of sniff fers here. More coke snifrers are to De found in this city than there are opium smokers of laudanum fiends in the en- tire State.
 The habit is a recent one, having been practically unknown a few years ago. It is said to have originated In Atlanta, Ga, where swell dens were conducted until broken up by the po- lice, and a strict law passed and en- forced prohibiting the sale of cocaine in any form except on the prescription of a regulrly licensed physician. No prescription can be refilled, but the sniffer, if he desires another lot of the poison, must go to a physician again and obtain another prescription.
 What the opium pill Is to smoker, the vial of laudanum to the drinking fiend. and absinthe to the slave Of that liQuid, so is cocaine to the sniffer, only more so. It Is claimed that the cocaine habit is harder to cure. easier to ac- quire and the effects more deadly, than that of morphine, laudanum, opium, ap- sinthe or any other drug.
 One reason of the popularity of CO., caine is the fact that 1t is cheaper, easier to take. does not leave the sal low skin that the other drugs give. and because of the fact that a fiend Is hard CT to discover. Once the habit Is on, however, it is next to impossible to break away from it. and' the result Is death from cancer of the head and nose. If. indeed, the end does not come soon CT and more sudden from the direct in- halation of the poison itself.
 So common has the shifting habit be- come that the Legislatures of several states throughout the country have framed laws prohibiting the sale of the stuff.
 The practice started with the re- sroes, but has spread so rapidly that there are today thousands of white men and women who are victims and to whom death will be a relief.
 There are a number of supposedly re- spectable and influential people in New Orleans today who are victims of CO., caine. They are sniffers of the worst form, but 1t is known to only few be- cause of the easy manner in which the victim can keep the secret.
 That the acquiring of the 'coke" hab- it is easy and fast is not doubted Old sniffers who have inhaled hundreds of dollars worth of the white stuff into the brains, admit that it is far more se- ductive than opium and morphine hab- it's.
 One OF two snlffs give a pleasing feeling and the sniffex imagines. he has a warranty deed to the entire earth. When this feeling passes away the nov ice wants to experience it again, and another sniff is secured. Several more and a fiend had been added to the al ready large list of unfortunates.
 It is easier to secure victim for this deadly drug than to get one for the opium-smoking or morphine injecting habit. This Is because of the fact that no i'll effects are felt after the first sniff. On the contrary the feeling Is a refreshing one, and makes the intended victim long for more.
 TO a person hitting the pipe for the first time, or to one who feels the et- feet of the morphine loaded needle. it Is different. The after effect of the latter drugs are such as to cause one to swear never to go up against pipe or a needle again as long as they may live. Of course they do so That is. some of them do, or there would be no dope fiends.
 With cocaine it is different. After sniffing the flaky substance into the nostrils the feeling Is one of exultation, and there is no R. F. Morse the morn Ing after.
 That coke snifnng is easy and hard to be detected is shown by the follow Ing description of how it Is done
 The cocaine is sold in a small box, either of wood or pasteboard, just the size of an ordinary small pill box. small box gan be purchased for ten cents at almost any drugstore. A box contains three sniffs. and they may be taken as close together as the snifrer desires
 A coke fiend does not call a sniff dose. He calls it a side" This name is taken from the fact that the stuff is sniffed from the lid of the pill box and that is filled to the rim, the top being