The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1921-12-02

prey upon the souls and bodies of oul
citizens.
| think Hans Damn said the trues.
thing have ever heard about the hor-
ror of the bottomless pit of the illicit
drug -peddling business, when he de-
clared that dope peddler was wors
than murderer in just so far as the
fate to which he consigned his vic
tins was worse than death.
This will give you some idea of why
the dope business is so lucrative AMI
why it is so hard to stop.
Hard to stop? How can 200 men,
which is all the United States gov
ernment has assigned to stopping it,
guard 10000 miles of coast line :?
How can 200 men put to rout an army
of $4,000 to 10000 vicious, furtive,
lawless dope peddlers?
There is not one vessel coming into
the Porth of Seattle that does not
bring in with it, hidden somewhere,
dope.
One vessel last year brought in
$120,000 worth. | heard a man, whose
word | am willing to believe. say he
saw $4,000 pounds in one container
near Seattle. Sixty-five thousand
pounds of morphine is enough to kill
every man, woman and child in the
City of Seattle.
"1n ten years." said great Japan
ese physician, who studied the mar
cotic business in this country for some
years, give million young Americans
will be unfit for military duty be-
cause of the hold the drug has on
them"
Can we not see the great national
menace behind this? Many hundreds
of thousands of pounds of morphine
are shipped to Japan. 1t doesn't stop
in Japan. Japan has the strictest
laws of any nation on earth against
the use of narcotic drugs by its citi-
zens. Japan ships this stuff to her
controlled ports of China where it is
given away to beginners in the use of
dope. The Japanese tell the unhappy
Chinese victims that it is white mans
medicine. They get him inoculated
with the habit until he can't get along
without it and then tell him that the
stuff is so scarce that they haven't
any more to give away, but will have
to make him pay for it now. Then
they have him where they want him.
And huge quantities of that which
is shipped to Japan is smuggled back
to the United States.
Canon Bliss went on at some
length to describe so-called "snow
parties" among boys and girls Of Sc
attic of high school age A voice in
the audience asked him what he
meant by "snow parties"
"Snow" is cocaine. 1t is white
and glistens like snow. There are
parties of automobilists organized
among boys and girls of high school
age. They sniff cccoine and that adds
life to their party. Our jazz music
and snow parties are simply differ
ent ends of the same string. Our
young people are crazed for new ex-
citement.
Diseased bodies and drug addiction
are going hand in hand with boys and
girls of Is and IS.
Not any menace today faces or
people that is equal to the drug men
ace.
We need laws with teeth. 1t is a
common thing to see drug peddor
walk out of. a United States cour..
with a sneer on his face because Of
the inadequate sentence passed on
him.
Notorious Chinese and Japanese
peddlers are arrested over and lver
again, and get off with sentences that
are not punishment, but merely H.
cense. Our federal deportation laws
ought to be made more adequately to
fit their cases.