Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-05-24

Sugar is thoroughly mixed with the
fine grains of Herein. This pound
of Milk Sugar cost about so cents.
The peddlers have different ways of
placing their goods on the market,
depending upon the city or town, as
in some sections the business is a
little different from Philadelphia
where they put the drug up in three
different styles. The popular style is
known in the Dope trade as a Deck
that is the peddler will have a small
piece of paper about three inches
square, into which he will place a
small thimble full of the mixture
about Is grains-into a neat little
package of about one inch square,, he
will place it in a small white envelope
and seal it, bending it over in half
and holding it in place with a gummed
seal. Each dealer has his own color
indicate the contents of the package.
Again the north side will use one
combination Of colors while the south
side will use another. Because of this
fact it is possible to determine the
general source of the supply. This
deck so arranged sells to the addict
for 50 each.
The dealer generally makes up
about 200 decks out of one ounce of
Herein and one pound Of Milk Sugar.
The peddler's whole cost is about 500
when he pays $50 per ounce for Her
DIN, so from his days work in selling
the 200 decks he realizes about $340
profit per day-so one can readily see
why the business is increasing and
why SO many young men, 16 to 80
years of age, are now selling dope.
Cocaine and Morphine are put up
in deck" form and in small bottles
containing about SO grains and selling
for S. a bottle.
While in cities like Chester, Harris
burg and Pittsburgh, there are very
few dealers who make up their wares
in Deck Form. They use capsules in
three sizes, small ones at $1.00, others
are $500 and $500 each. In the west
they call a deck a 'bingle." The aver
age addict must have a deck every
day. Now to get this dope at $500 a
day, or at the cost of $14 a week, what
is the result?
Dope and Crime
Can an addict work at an honest
business, receive honest wages and
afford to spend that much each week
for Dope? l say no. My experience
has taught mi that when a man or
woman uses any Narcotics they will
usually steal. 1t is clear that the as
tonishing series of burglaries, hold
in the large cities is not the work of
normal men. Such acts of violence
are increasing in proportion to the
spreading of the Illicit drug traffic.
When the Police and Federal au-
thorities are able to control the sale
of drugs, which to a large extent have
supplanted ordinary intoxicants among
habitual criminals in the underworld,
there will be fewer daylight robberies
and the streets of Eastern cities will
have less of the atmosphere of the
Wild West trails of legend. The Po-
lice know as well as anybody that no
thug in his ordinary senses would at
tempt a hold-up such as that in which
messengers of the Corn Exchange
Bank of Philadelphia were relieved of
about $4,000, as they were entering the
office of a Frankfort Mill.
That and similar robberies reveal
clearly the method and technique of
the habitual dope taker. The drugs
most in demand by criminal insane
addicts are those which generate a
sudden, insane courage and a maniac's
disregard of the consequences Of ex-
t~raordinary risks.
Nine highway men out of every ten
are drug fiends, who deliberately
"charge" themselves before they go
out to rob.
They move in a sort of delirium of
false courage before the reaction OF
the ~"charge" leaves them sick and
helpless.
While public attention has been
fixed upon the question of liquor pro-
hibition, the drug traffic has spread
and grown to an extent never before
dreamed of.
Commissioner Haynes has asked
for $40, 900, 900 for the enforcement OF
the Volstead law for this year.
Double that amount could be prof.
tably spent on the suppression of the
Drug traffic.