The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-08-17
NO PARTNERSHIP
GRIP OF THE DRUG HABIT
Charles B. Towns!in the Century Mage

 Charles B. Towns. in the Century Maga-
 zine.
 "HE drug habit is no respecter. of
 persons. l have had under my
 ! care exemplary mothers and wives who became indifferent to their families; clergymen of known sincerity and fervor who became shoplifters and forgers; fhrewd. successful business men who be- came paupcrs, because the habit left them at the mercy of sharpers after men tai deterioration had set in. For the ini- mediate action of morphine by no means |paralyzes the mental faculties. Though when once a man becomes addicted to the drug he Is incapacitated to deal with hirr- self. yet while he is under it's brief ln- fluence his mind is sharpened and alert
 Under the sway of opium man does venturesome or immoderate things that he would never think of doing otherwise simply because he. has lost the sense or responsibility. I have had patients who took as much as 50 grains of morphine in a single dose, an overdose for about 150 persons. and about 50 grains more than inc takers could possibly assimilate or needed to produce the result-an excel lent illustration of how the habit destroys all judgment and all sense of proportion.
 Against this appalling habit, which can he acquired easily and naturally and the result of which is always complete de- moralization, there is at present no effec- five safeguard except that provided by nature itself and this is effective only in certain cases.
 It 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 com n,only attributed to the drug Yet this titiful natural safeguard, while rarely operat tive. is more efficacious than any other that up to the present has been provided by man in his heedlessness, in difference and greed.
 The important habit forming drugs arc oci,lm cocaine and the small but dan eerous group of .hypnotics These last trional veronal, sulphonal, medinai' etc are chiefly ccal tar products, and arc not always classified as habit forming drugs, but they are such, and there are many reasons why the sale or them .hould be scfupulously regulated. The opium derivatives go under the general head of narcotics. Morphine is the ac- tive principle, and cocaine and heron are inc chief derivatives of opium Codeine is one-eighth the strength of morphine; heroin is three times as strong as nor pline
 Though the general impression is other wise. the users of these two drugs acquire inc habit as quickly and as easily as IT they took morphine. Many cough ano asthma preparations contain heroin, sim nIv for temporary alleviation, since, like oplum. it has no curative power what over From time to time I have had to treat cases of heroin taking in which the victtms had thought to satisfy their need .or an opiate without forming habit. In the cases where it was given by pre- scrlption. it was so given by the physi- c.an in the sincere belief that 1t wou'o nor create habit.
 | All this despite the fact that heroih 's three times stronger than morphine anu despite the fact that physicians kho" that anything which will do the worN ----l | of an opiate is an opiate Codeine' noi- vthstanding the fact that 1t IS weahei than morphine, is likewise habit form- ing. vet doctors prescribe it on account 1 of it's relative mildness. even though they know that it is the cumulative enect or continued doses and not the quantity oi r,ornhine in the dose. which results aii habit As, with morphine, to use either of these drugs effectively means in the ,.,,a run the necessary increase of the d,sc up to the limit of physical toier- ance.
 rbe most harmful of all habit forming drugs is cocaine. Nothing so qui1kly de-
 teriorates it's victim or provides so short
 a cut to the asylum for the, insane. It differs from opium in two important
 ways. man does not acquire habit 1 from cocaine in the sense that it is vir- tually impossible for him to leave it of ! without medical treatment. He can do SO 4ithougn he rarely does. On withdrawal