The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-05-05

outfit, consisting or a. hyperueTIn1c' and either a. liquid solution of, the drug, or a. spoon in which to dissolve it. Also, the insertion of the needle is a painful process, and not seldom are the. punctures infected, forming disagreeab1e or dangerous abscesses- With cocaine or heroin. however, no apparatus is necessary. small DOT ton of the powder is poured on the back of the hand, or blown from 8 powder tnsufflator. A quick sniIf' and the drug effect is secured.
 Rather peculiar is the fact that the cocaine takers, in coI1tra-distinc- ton to the morphine, heron, acetana- lid, or chlora1 user, is gregar1ouS in his tendency, He joys in seeing oth- CTS in a condition similar to his own. He resembles the conviy1a1 drunkard ard in this respect Tn many parts of the country thep ractice of giving sniff ing parties'' is very common, and ire quently these are followed by an orgy Of wholesale murder.
 The influence of narcotics in the, rapidly. increasing insane rate of this country is only beginning to be recog- nized. In New York city last year, for every 386 patients admitted to asylums, one was a drug nend. This is bad enough, but in the South the rate reaches appalling proportions. For instance, in Georgia, the propor- ton is one in forty-two; in North Carolina. about one in eighty-four; and in one Mississippi hospital one | out of every twenty-three patients was a cocaine addict. Perhaps the significance of these figures can be better understood if we remember that there are from five to fifteen times as many insane drug victims in the South as in New York State.
 Able and conservative students of the problem have accounted for this alarming increase in cocaine con- sumption in the South by the fact that the negro and the ''poor whites
 are no longer able to secure the H- quors with which they formerly poi Eoned themselves And equally in- teresting and significant is the fact that since the reduction of opium con
 sumption in China and India. there has been an almost corresponding in
 crease in, the use of alcohol
 So it can readily be seen that the problem of dealing with the drug evil Is even more intricate and difficult
 than we have been led to believe, for 1t seems to be almost inextricab1y mix
 ed with other problems, which must also be solved if we are to achieve permanently beneficial results.
 The far-reaching influence of the | drug habit can perhaps better be req | 1ized when we remember that even l within the walls of penetentiaries and
 reforrni tories the use of cocaine, nor phine, and heroin is alarmingly pre- va1ent. This, because almost all
 crimina ls-partic the profes- sionaI thug and gangster-are addict ed to ssdope.'
 In Investigating the methods by
 which prisoners get their supplies, ex- perts have uncovered some almost uncanny practices. For instance, a prisoner's wife or sweetheart would bring him a starched shirt or some clean handkerchfefs- The moment he Ihad them safely in his cell, would | or morphine which had been oiisso1v- ed in the starch. Oranges and foun- tain pens were also found such excel
 lent mediums for smuggling heroin
 ana other drugs into prisons that they are now practically tabooed-
 Effect of seDope'' on Morals 1 It must not be thought that be- versa1 among the immoral and crirn- final, that all addicts are necessarily 1 immoral or criminal Many may be l of the very highest moral character l to commence with. How long they l will remain so is another question. l For drugs are the common, tragedy of the professional world-of doctors, lecturers, actors, writers, scientists, 1 teachers. or students-of all those l who seek doubtful relief from the
 who may have been merely sensation seekers. or who are attempting escape I from violation of moral law. I Perhaps the most pitable fact con- l nected with the use of drugs is the I extreme youth of the majority of the
 addicts. Narcotics are pedd1ed, some i times within one hundred feet of a school house, and boys and girls of
 from 14 to IS become enslaved to
 their effects. It is matter Of EtA-
 tistics that the vast majority of those I using these poisons in New York and | a fkaz a q
 ages of sixteen and twenty-one. I In fact, City Prison Physician Jack son R. Campbell, testifying before the
 Senate Public Health Committee re-
 gently, made the startling assertio on
 that within a radius of a few blocks
 of Third avenue and One Hundred
 and Forty Ninth street, New York
 over one-thousand school children
 have acquired the heroin habit, or
 are in danger of becoming '.joy-rid-
 ers,'' because of their present use o1
 Also, the ..doped', drink is the
 chiefest and most potent ally of the white slayer. For, in the intermissior
 between dances, much is accomplish ed through the agency of a. drugge6 drunk that may never be nndone. So long as the Interstate traffic il habit-forming drugs is permitted, jus
 so long will illegal vendors and. user
 find devious and muItftudinous way or De4C1nS the law AS there Il 2 nothing to prevent, unScrupu1ou ! dealers ship into the State these dev irs brews that take out the imam : and make an addict. In fact, the for nation of the habit, in very man, : instances, may be directly caused b 2 one or the other of drug containin ! medicines, that cannot even be sol
 in the State in which it was mad
 but which can be shipped into, an 6 sold in other States The sale of co 6 caine is prohibited in Maryland ex t cepting on a doctors prescription, bu B there is nothing to prevent a +sales - man in Maryland from shipping co 6 oaine into the District of CoIumbi 0 where a similar law is in force. Thi s shipment may go direct to the ped a d1er, consumer, or other irresponsibl .- parties.