The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-10-08
In the Grip of the Appalling
Drug Habit.

The drug habit is no respector of
persons. | have had under my care
exemplary mothers and wives who
became indiffei ont to their families,
clergymen of known sincerity and
fervor who became shOplifters and
forgers; shrewd, successful business
men who became paupers, because
the habit left them at the mercy OF
sharpers after mental deterioration
had set in, says a writer in Century.
For the immediate action of NOR
phine by no means paralyzes the
mental faculties. Though when once
a man becomes addicted to the drug
he is incapacitated to deal with him
self. vet while he is under its brief
influence his mind is sharpened and
alert.
Under the sway of opium a man
does venturesOme or immOderate
things that he would never think of
doing otherwise, simply because he
has lost the sense of responsibility.
[ have had patients who took as
much as 60 grains of morphine in a
single dose, an overdose for about
$50 persons, and about so grains
more than the takers could possibly
assimilate if needed to produce the
result-an excellent illustration OF
how the habit destroys all judgment
and all sense of proportion.
Against this appalling habit, which
can be acquired easily and naturally
and the result of which is always
complete decentralization, there is at
present no effective safeguard except
that provided by nature itself, and
this is effective only in certain cases.
1t happens that in many people
opium produces nausea, and this one
thing alone has saved some from the
habit, for this type of addict never
experiences any of the temporarily
soothing sensations commonly at
tributed to the drug. Yet this pitiful
natural safeguard, while rarely oper-
ative, is more efficaciOus than any
other that up to the present time
has been provided by man in his
heedlessness, Indifference and greed.
The important habit-forming drugs
are opium, cocaine and the small but
dangerous group of "hypnotics. .
These last-trional, veronal, sulphO-
nal, medinal, etc.-are chiefly coal
| JdI pIOuuSlS, anu Oh z NV Ni W ~
classified as habit-forming drugs, but
| they are such. and there are many
reasons why the sale of them should
be scrupulously regulated. The OPT
UNI derivatives go under the general
head of narcotics. Morphine is the
active principle, and codeine and he
roin are the chief derivatives of OPT
UNI. Codeine is One-eighth the
strength of morphine; heroin is three
! times as strong as morphine.
Though the general impression is
otherwise the users of these two
drugs acquire the habit as quickly
and as surely as if they took NOR
phine. Many cough and asthma
preparations contain heroin, simply
| for temporary alienation. since, like
opium, it has no curative power
| whatever From time to time l have
| had to treat cases of herOin taking
| in which the victims had thought to
satisfy their need for an opiate
without forming q habit. In the
| cases where it was given by pre-
scription it was so given by the ply
sicians in the sincere belief that it
would not create habit.
| All this despite the fact that he
roin is three times stronger than is
morphine, and despite the fact that
physicians know that anything which
will do the work of an opiate is an
opiate. Codeine, Notwithstanding
the fact that it is weaker than NOR
phine, is likewise habit-fOrming; yet
doctors prescribe it on account of its
relative mildness, even though they
know that it is the cumulative effect
OF continued doses and not to the
quantity of morphine in the dose
which results in the habit. AS with
morphine to use either of these drugs
effectively means in the long run the
necessary increase of the dose up to
the limit of physical tolerance
The most harmful of all habit
forming drugs is cocaine, Nothing
so quickly deteriorates its victim or
provides so short a cut to the asylum
for the insane. 1t differs from CO.
caine in the sense that it is virtually
impossible for him to leave it off
without medical treatment, He can
do so, although he rarely does. On
withdrawal he experiences only an
intense and horrible depression, to-
gether with 9 physical languor which
results in sleepiness that cannot be
shaken off.
Opium withdrawal. on the other
hand, results in sleeplessness and ex-
| IRENE nervous and physical disOr-
| der. In action, too. cocaine is an eX-
IRENE stimulant. Its stimulus wears
off quickly and leaves a correspond
| ing depression, but it confers half
an hour of capability of intense eff
/ fort. That is why bicycle riders,
prize fighters and race horses are Of
ten doctored or 'doped" with CO.
1 came. When cocaine gives out its
victim invariably resorts to alcohol
/ for stimulus; alcoholics, however,
| when deprived of alcohol generally
drift into the use of morphine.