The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-09-14
THE CURSE OF COCAINE.
Use of the Drug Spreading and Even Children
Are Victims.
providence Journal.)

tProvldence Iournal)
An Item IN the news columns of one of the Nev
YORK dallles records the attempted suicide of
boy OF l6. 1t is probable that this bow will die;
one can hardly wish that he should live indeed
Tor the cause of his effort to end his life was the
cocaine habit 1t seems that in the boys home
Newark, N. D., this Veritable curse has reached
SUCH proportions that a crusade has been ORGANIZED
to stamp out the illegal selling or use of the drug
over lUO arrests have already been made and this
unfortunate lad evidently feared public disgrace
II he dld not put an end to a ruined life His rela-
i've shad made every effort to cure him of the
Iatal hablt; but no means could be found to rob
tne cocaine OF It's fascination for the boy; at the
time when he was found half dead several boxes of
cocaine were in his pockets
The widespread use of this drug has reached a
point where cocaine should be recognized as act
ually national menace In China the government
under Yuan Shih-Kai is making steady and de-
termlned tight against the opium habit In this
country the cocaine habit-universally recognized
by physicians the most dangerous of all artificial
means OF stimulating deadening the faculties
is gaming Roadway at a rate rapid that those
who have studied the situation hesitate TO predict
the probable results. Not alone among the white
race, but among the negroes also has the cocaine
hablt reached alarming proportions. A writer in
one OF the current periodicals relates case in
winch the negroes working in a certain place were
Systematically led into debauchery by a fend in
human shape-a white man-who induced them to
use cocaine and thus reduced them from fairly
efficient workers to iders or butes according to
their natural tendencies
The effect of cocaine is acknowledged to be- with
out exception, pernicious when used for any pur-
pose other than a strictly therapeutic one 1t de-
bases the mind and morals much more quickly than
opium, and It's effect the vital forces is almost
immediate Deterioration of every part of the
bodily system Is the penalty for its use No pos
sIble excuse for employing its agency without a
PHYSICIANS order can be found And yet in spite
OF all these things, in spite of the new laws bv
which all so-called medicines containing cocaine
must be plainly labeled, the scourge is spreading
Without doubt we have to thank these "medicinesn
Tor good part of the evil. Many persons were in
the habit of using powders containing cocaine
before the new laws were enacted without the
slightest suspicion of the fatal taste which thew
were thus acquiring.
There Is however. at the present time no rea-
son for condOning the action of anv one who in
order to put an end to a temporary discomfort
endangers the health of his mind and body by US
ing any formula which contains cocaine without
the express orders of physician. Unfortunately
we cannot hepe that persistent effort on the part
OF all minded people will stamp out the cocaine
habit has gone too far for that-but such ac-
ton will inevitably contribute toward this not
merely desirable but essential end. If we are not
to find a large element in our population speedily
on a lower plane than the Chinese as users of
drugs, authorities and citizens must cooperate in
all parts of the country to make the word Cocaine
abhorTed of every decentsperson unless used in con-
nectlon with the description of seance in the den
tlsts chair or of a surgical operation.