The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-05-29
VETS 0VERWORK DRUG
ANTI DRY. ARGUMENT
New YoTk II Wide open City. 'Hooze
Easy to Get and Yet Drug Addicts
ars on the Increase

new 1oTk IL Wide Open City. Booze
Easy to Get and Yet Drug Addicts
| ars on the Increase
The efforts of the liquor interests
publicity department to max it APP
pear that the approach of prohibition
has caused a marked increase in the
use of habit forming drugs in New
York City is being ~overworked. There
is no question but that saloon infested
New York City has considerably more
than h average number OF drug
addicts. This is undoubtedly due to
the fact that ii Is a wide open city and
1t Is probably true that with the clos
ing of the saloons the authorities will
find It much easier to enforce the Har-
rson drug act. BY a of illustration
of how somebody Is overworking the
drug addict story the following edi-
torial from the New York Morning
Telegraph OF April 10 is illuminating. =
No cause ever yet has been ad-
vanced by making 1t ridiculous: No
reforms are effected by extravagant
and apparently untrue statements con-
corning an evil, however ready In
public may be to recognize the evil as
a menace to the community. No
doubts thai there is an Illicit traffic
in habit forming drugs; and all good
citizens are alive to the necessity of
hunting down n furnishing often
ders against the law. But II will do
no good to misrepresent. A govern
ment agent is reported by a local Of
fetal as saying that three physicians
in New York wrote 1900, 600 pre-
scriptions for drug addicts within a
period of six months. Let Us analyze
this statement and see precisely what
it means.
1t means, in the first place. that one
doctor wrote half a million prescrip~
lions in one month. which is at the
rate OF S3,330 a month, 2,777 a day.
I'D an hour or approximately two a
minute If he worked twenty-fo,fr
hours a day. which of course he did
not do. III he worked steadily writing
prescriptions or signing his name to
blank prescriptions eight hours a day,
sundays Included he signed II every
twelve seconds, taking no time for
meals.
How Ne avoided writer's cramp is
one or the mysteries not set forth In
1.-THE charges.
Another authority IA quoted as
saying there are 10000 drug addicts
IN greater New York. Estimating the
adult population at two million per-
sons, this indicates that one person in
every six OF the adult population is a
drug addict. Does anybody with a
lthimbleful of common sens helieve
this Certainly not The autborities
have a serious problem To solve ana
its solution is not going to be acceIer-
ated by palpably false assertions
1t was stated by one official. Az nre
I~viously quoted in American Issue tbat
TINS large increase in drug addicts In
: New YORK City is due to the increased
! cost of booze. 1t isn't likely thai
people will accept any such theory in
view of the fact that sa1oons az u.;da
open in New York city and while :,
is true liquor has advanced in nrice
everyone knows that 1t is still nnuch
cheaper than the narcotic drugs and
much more easily procured. A state.
ment was made in the April !, MN,
Der Of the Literary Digest thai there
were 500 victims of the drug habit
in Jacksonsville, Fla. out of a nonu.
lation Of 1000; that there is n law In
Jacksonville compelling repistration
that It strictly enforced so that ~