The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-05
CRUSADE AGAINST
 THE DRUG EVIL. Congress Will Be Asked To.
 Regulate Trade HABIT INSPIRING DRUGS Vicious Effects of Cocaine and Opium. Prohibition Might Bring Other and More Harmful Drugs
 Into Use.

From the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Urged on by the United States the great powers of the Old World have en- | tered into a pact to drive the opium smoker and opium eater out of existence. l In so doing they will sacrifice many mil | lions of revenue every year. As soon as the crusade against the poppy has been won-and the day of victory may be l said to be dawning-the United States l will take just as resolute steps to abolish , in every civilized land the growing traffic In cocaine, hasheesh, absinthe choral and other drugs that fasten themselves upon mankind.
 Statistics prove that, as ths importa- tion of opium subsidies the incoming of other harmful drugs increases at an alarming rate. Today in the United States from coast to coast and from Canada to gulf, there is steady increase in the use of drugs that are almost as destructive as the Oriental flower that furnishes opium. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of this country are addict ed to the constant use of headache powders that contain deadly acetanalid;
 
 without swallowing a quantity of choral hydrate. which is the Knockout drops'' of the professional thug; unnumbered others daily use preparations of cocaine to give them fancied strength for their work, while legion of others habitually use belladonna, arsenic and strychnine without consulting a physician.
 United Effort Needed.
 To stamp out the use of these drugs among the people will require the best efforts of the national as well as the state governments. Every physician must be volunteer in the service, ev- cry school teacher, minister and parent, who realizes the awful importance of the subject, must help.
 The tremendous increase in the use of cocaine that followed the passage of the restrictive laws against opium may be gathered when it Is known that in 1904- before the United States took up the cudges against the Oriental habit-the importance of cocaine was only 58, 900 ounces. and of coca leaves, from which cocaine is made, was 53,0o0 ounces In 1905 300000 ounces of the leaves were i'm ported but the importation of cocaine had fallen off to about half what 1t was the year before because. rather than pay duty of B per cent ad valorem, the chemists had started up the manufacture
 
 , scale. Tn 1896 the importation of coca leaves was 2,6O0O0O ounces.
 By this time. however, many of the states awoke to the fact that cocaine was a pretty dangerous drug to have sold about the cities and towns without any safeguards or stint, and many of them passed restrictive laws. The passage of these statutes resulted in the shrnkage of the importations of coca leaves in 1907 to 1,515,000 ounces. and in 1908 to 633 900 ounces In 1908 the importation of cocaine from abroad was only 3792 ounces. valued at s110S The use of cocaine in medicine and surgery is, of course. to produce local anasthesia or insensibi1ity. When taken internally its effect Is to produce criminals.
 Cocaine's Evil Effects.
 No drug on the market seems to have anywhere near such demoralizing effect upon the human system The habitual user soon loses all moral courage. Lying and stealing are the least of the crimes he is ready to commit when under the influence, and, in the majority of cases, his nature becomes brutalized and changed for the worse.
 No one knows just where or when the ..cocaine habit" first started in this country. It is generally laid at the door of proprietary powder that was put on the market and advertised as "sure- cure Tor cold III the neao. HIS poWuer contained cocaine and be1ladonna and seemed to produce the effect advertised. Pretty soon the authorities in various states found that certain powders on the market, which looked like the 'cold-in- the-head cure.' contained nothing to speak of except cocaine. The belladonna had been dropped out. It was found, and Is still tho fact, that these powders were sold to thousands of persons in the great cities and in the thickly populated dis tricts of the south
 Nearly all the southern states have taken drastic measures to prevent the sale of cocaine, but until the federal government takes a hand by prohibiting the movement of the drug in interstate commerce, great deal will be smuggled across the state lines and used. The same may be said of all the other drugs that the communities would exclude. No