El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1919-07-12
What Shall Be Done With The Drug User?
Who Is To Blame For Millions OF SLAVES?
Most of Them Contract the
Habit Innocently, While
Alleviating Pain.
Patent Medicine and Head
ache Powders Among
Potent Contributors.
BY waL w. BODDIE.

THE needless use OF drugs IS the
/ most patent evil in American life.
The money spent annually in the
United States for needless drugs
would pave every street in the land
with gold and make every gutter flow
with milk and honey.
More than one person IN every hun
dred in America is an abject slave 10
some drug and more than ten in every
hundred daily take some kind OF medi-
cine for the purpose OF preventing or
OF curing some real or ina gined III.
There are enough men IN the United
States engaged in producing. handling
and administering drugs TO form q
greater army than Xerxes led up to
the Hellespont combined with that
Foch arrayed against the Rhine.
The ssubstnntfaIy Addiets.
There are fully one million drug ad-
diets in America today. This immense
number does not include the compare
lively few unfortunates who live in
the underworld whers the constant
crave for new sensations and the
stings OF outraged nature drive them
to using drugs.
Contrary to public opinion. there are
probably ten times as many addIcts
among the substantial business and
professional men Of the country as
among the denizens Of the under
world Sometime ago an FL Paso
druggist who owned and operated a
drug store that supplied the city's
lower classes purchased another drug
store that he d been patronized BY the
social elect After the man had in
vestigated the prescription files OF his
new business. he remarked: 7 thought
that had been selling all the NOR
phine used in the west at my place
down by the river but find that the
lawyers. preachers, teachers and mill
Honaires up on the hill have bought
more from this one place than knew
had been made in the world
Since drug hahitues from the sub
stantial class OF citizenship always
conceal their bondage and criminals
are ever anxious to attribute their IL
legal acts 10 some force without them
selves and frequently have their
stories told IN court, the average man
has formed his opinion OF drug addlcts
from unerworld habitues and II Is
decidedly erroneous
Lots Of Romancing.
The public has come to believe that
the use Of drugs destroys ones mem
tai and moral fibre and many crlmi-
nails take advantage OF this feeling
with the hope OF escaping punishment
on the ground Of irresp possibility And.
too. since the first Arab found solace
in the dried juice OF the poppy plant
until this good day, there has been
accommodating an immense body OF
purely imaginative literature on the
subject Of drug addiction When q
81 ~ q ~ frin
relief. he is generally given q severe
moral lecture and kicked out of the
office Few doctors seem 10 realize
that drug addiction Is a TRIBE dis
ease and that their profession and It's
allied business are responsible Tor
nearly ali drug addiction disease
Since underworld addicts have their
history so frequently published in
newspapers and nearly every time
some crime IS in some way connected. I
drugs is one OF the chief sources OF
crime and that IL makes men lie and
steal, and commit all manner OF evil
acts And almost every book written
on the subject shows strong fnfiu-
ences Of this purely imaginative puri- /
tanic superstition.
The drug habit IS not evidence Of
mental weakness nor moral cepravity !
and is not necessarily connected with I,
them
Famous Doctors Statement.
Towns. who has treated thousands /
OF drug addiction cases and who prob
ably knows more about drug hobitues /
than any other living man. SAYS that !
no physician has yet been able to
show the morally degeneratinS effect
of drugs. and that he himself has 4
never seen a case where II could be I
shown He says that the criminal I
acts OF drug addicts are not at all |
symptoms of the addiction disease. hut /
they may be evidence Of the nervous I
collapse incident to abrupt Withdraw Z
al Of the accustomed drug.
A ninn In supreme agony wiz DO