The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1921-12-06
100000
SLAVES IN
us. TODAY
Annie Laurie Tells Of Worldwide
Ring Profiting by Weakness
Of Humanity.
By ANNIE LAURIE.

By ANNIE LAURIE.
Eighteen young, attractive, in
sslligent well-educated, refined
American girls were brought into
the police court In Seattle, WASH,
the other day, and every one Of
them was half-mad with cocaine.
These girls came from good
families. and they were all. ex-
cept two, high school girls.
Addicts Among Children.
They didn't live In Seattle. They
lived in comfortable homes in the
country and their fathers were we'll
TODD. Intelligent orchardists and
A little over q month ago I went
up and down the Sacramento river in
the beautiful State Of California and
saw boys and girls from high school
flocking to evil resorts where they
could buy opium, morphine, cocaine
or heroin. just whichever they pre-
ferred and take not the slightest risk
in buying 1t as far as any such thing
as arrest was concerned.
And they did buy teach his own
favorite poison.
1t was terrible to stand there In
the streaming sunshine and Sc.
thrifty little autos drive up to the
curb and watch the boys Pile out mo
the street and buy cocaine or heroin,
% they could have snow party
just for fun.
In two different American univer-
stiles students have been arrested in
the past three months for selling
morphine to their fellow students
M Ysipl y,
Legion Post in great Western city
ask q the help of outside organiza
tions 10 fight the drug evil in the
ranks of the sick and lonely and fo.'-
saken American soldiers home from
the war.
Prey on Sick Veterans.
The drug rings sends agents to the
v.rY hospital gates. They wait out
4 and when the soldier limps out
weak and bewildered and lonely. the
drug ring agents get hold of him,
and the first thing he knows he Is
q drug slave.
every new victim 10 good for six
victims more"-that's an axiom In
the drug ring.
Spreading, spreading. spreading the
htde0us, secret, fertive, cruel evtl-nO
home 10 safe from 1t.
No household. howsoever defended.
can be sure that some day, some
how, the drug ring will not mark d
victim within its most intimate cir
Gle.
In the last ten years the evil has
grown like q noxfous weed and In
the last two years It has leaped
ahead like devastating prairie fire
1t IL not by accident that this thing
grows. 1t II by design. carefully.
methodically. cleverly worked out de-
sign.
Things are a little quiet in one par
ticular section Of the country and the
drug ring needs some new customers.
What happensf = r.cs f.. '-|
.,s 8 Girls Used - Lures. Jtt.
The ring sends out a well-dressed,
agreeable man or a pretty attractive
girl into some little village that is the
center of a thrifty community. The
girl opens a little shop for millinery
or candy. The man opens a soft
drink place, perhaps, or a barber shop.
He gets acquainted with the young
fellows who drift in and out Of his
place. One night he has ''snow
party" and gives each of his guests q
sniff Of cocaine Two or three such
parties and the thing is done
The attractive girl has "snow
party" too. with some of the girls
she manages to meet, and at the end
Of six months there will be half a
dozen victims in the town and each
one Of them is good for six victims
more.
And somebody, somewhere, Is
putting q lot of money in the bank.
How long will 1t be before America
takes a lesson from China and awakes
to the reality of this terrible menace.
What a brave fight the Chinese
have made, and what a courageous
fight they are making this very hour
in Washington at the disarmament
conference.
They have fought two wars to keep
opium out of their country. They