The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-07-13
DOPE FIENDS.
Will Do Almost Anything to Get a
''ShOt."

months ago young man about "a
years old walked into the Office OF
the United States district attorney in
the federal building and told officials
that he wanted to make confession,
relates a st. Louis dispatch.
He said that he and a former en-
graver in the United States treasury
department at Washington were liv-
ing in a houseboat near Carondolet;
that his companion had been engaged
in manufacturing the bogus bank
notes and that he (the informant)
had been circulating them through
out the city. He had become con-
science striken, he declared, and had
decided to tell the whole story and
take the punishment. His tale was
thoroughly plausible and was told
with a wealth of detail that convinc-
ed his hearers that he was telling
the truth.
After the narrative was completed
the young mans face took on a look
of agony. He clasped his hands to
his stomach and writhed as if in great
pain. He explained that he was sub
feet to cramps and the officials had
him removed to a city dispensary,
still apparently undergoing intense
suffering. Physicians there admins
tered several injections of morphine
and the patient rapidly recovered.
When the drug had thoroughly
permeated his system the mans
whole demeanor changed. He seem
ed to be ecstatically happy. Then
he made another confession more
startling than the first. He said
that for six years he had been a NOR
phine addict; that since the stringent
Harrison law had gone into effect he
had been unable to obtain supply,
and that the entire story he had told
the federal officials was pure fab
rication, invented in a last desperate
effort to obtain a "shot" of that
which his body craved with such an
Intensity that all scruples were swept
aside.
Register as Physician.
, This is but one illustration of the
lengths to which drug addicts have
gone, of the lies they have told,
tricks they have planned to get their
DOPE since the new drug law be-
came effective March 1. They found
TO their CONSERVATION that the law
was rigidly enforced from the day
1t. was in force, that it provided such
severe punishments that few drug
gists or physicians had the temerity
to experiment as to whether or not
it could be made elastic. The supply
was cut off as suddenly as if the vic
TINS had been placed on a desert is
land.
The Harrison law prohibits all
persons from selling or giving away
habit forming drugs without physi-
clans prescription or under the di-
rect instructions of physician. The
penalty for violation is a fine of not
more than $4,000 or Imprisonment
Tor not more than five years or both.
That doctors, dentists, druggists, vet
erinarians or others who may obtain
them, the statute provides that they
shall register at the United States in
ternal revenue Office, pay a small IL
cense fee and obtain a supply of 100
blanks, which when properly filled
out establish their right to purchase
morphine, cocaine, heroin or any of
their derivatives for use in their bus
mess
Upon this clause in the statute per-
sons addicted to the use of narcotics
seized hungrily at a possible means
OF circumventing it. Vance J. Higgs,
assistant United States district at
torney, to whom was assigned the in
vestigation and prosecution of cases
falling under the Harrison act,
caught no fewer than IL addicts in
the act of registering as physicians
or pharmacists, continued use of mar
cotics having warped their judgment,
banished fear and left only an over
mastering desire for the poison.
One of these was woman who
had been using drugs for 29 years
and who in all that time had kept
her secret from her family. The
woman is well educated, we'll read
and her family is prominent. She
came to the federal building, regis
tered as q physician and received the
necessary blanks, but was detected
before she had an opportunity to use
any of them. She pleaded guilty in
federal court to perjury in the max
ing of a false affidavit and was fined