The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1921-12-10
OFF
SUPPLY Of
D0PE: ,PLEA

UUI LyILLn
Experts Soc That As Only Means
to halt Increasing Of
Distress.
BY ANNIE LAURIE.
What is America going to do about
the traffic in drugs which is drag
ging Thousands Of men and women
and boys and girls all over the coun-
try. down to misery, despair, degra-
dalton and death?
Widespread Infection.
In the last two years those whose
eyes have been opened have watched
the drug traffic growing until there
10 no village 20 remote a. to hope to
escape the infection. no family 90
guarded and secure that It Is safe from
the deadly danger of the drug habit.
The drug ring il no happen so" ar.
rangement. 1t IL a studied, well
planned. wen organized business. run
! by clever. interruptions men. and
helped out by sodden wretches who
would sell their own souls and the
souls Of everyone they know for a few
grains Of morphine.
Any chief of police, any warden of
any penitentiary in any State In the
Union today will tell you that 30 per
cent of the crimes Of violence that are
90 40 toA
by drug nends.
Morphine drags its victims down
Into slough Of sodden degradation.
While a man IL under the influence OF
morphine he IN comparatively harm.
loss. content to dream away his life
and his hope and his courage and his
honesty.
. Let him he without his drug for any
reason whatsoever and he will commit
any crime. even murder, to get 1t.
Cocaine IN a great stimulant. 1t acts
in exactly the opposite way from NOR
phine. Without his cocaine the drug
slave who Ii addicted to what he calls
"snow' IL harmless enough. Give him
one or two "sniffs" and he Is more
dangerous than any other homicidal
maniac in the world. Nearly all OF
the wild crimes Of violence such as
holdups, robberies Of various sorts
and murders which seem to be COM
mitted without any adequate explana-
ton have their source in the whirling
brain of 4, drug slave. -
slaves rnfsst Evefy city.
And some Of these criminals, many
Of them, in tact, come not from the
slums. but from good homes and good
schools.
Every city in the country has its
drug slaves by the hundreds. and
many cities have them by the thou
sand.
Almost every little village in this
country today has a dope shop" some
where in Its quiet streets.
Sometimes it's in an ice cream par
lor. Sometimes the proprietor of
soft drink stand Ia the agent OF the
drug ring, and the other day In the
Middle West they found a barber shop
which was nothing but blind for the
sale Of cocaine and morphine.
Yesterday in New York city q very
well-known man said to group OF
friends:
''I never gave much thought to this
thing till my own son came home from
high school the other day and said:
What is this white powder the kids
are buying and selling? They say it's
q great jazz medicine
Out in San Francisco tho high
school boys know all about coke" and
''morph." They heard of 1t from the
boys who are trying to sell the stuff.
A recent investigation shows that
two Of the best-known women In
Chicago died not long ago from the
effects Of heroin. They were both
drug slaves. One of the leading
newspaper men in Chicago died of
drug addiction. One of the leading
lawyers of the Chicago bar Is q
drug slave, and II is pitiful to see
how fast he is following the dark
road of failure and despair to the
foot of the hill.
Department store managers in the
Northwest and the Middle West are
worried about the spread Of the drug
vice.
Some Of the clerks are young and
pretty and they like to dance and
have good times.
No Class Distinction.
You can't do that and work all
day. too. So what is easier than to
slip into the dressing room at noon,
take a sniff of cocaine and get
braced up for the afternoons work.
Doctors. nurses. teachers. house.
wives-like gaunt and terrible
, army, the victims groan and In
crease.
We are using here In this country
today seven times as much Of these
narcotics as Is used In any other
country in the world.
An American Admiral. who Is
making a study Of the narcotic sit
uation, said to a certain investigat-
ing committee the other day:
Something's got to be done about