Imperial Valley press., 1924-04-21
NARCOTIC EDUCATION WEEK


NARCOTIC EDUCATION WEEK
National Narcotic Education Week. sponsored by
the International Narcotic Education Association, is
effort in which federal state and municipal author
ties, and school authorities generally, cooperating
to have the facts about habtorming drugs presented
through regular educational channels to all the young
people in all schools and colleges Of America during
the week of April 2128. It is proposed that eventu-
ally these facts, properly marshalled in the text
books shall be taught as part of the regua courses
of study, that boy girl shall remain ignorant
OF the nature Of these drugs and their peril to the IN
dividual and the race Through education the rising
generation will be given mantle of protection against
the of narcotic addiction which numbers its
victims in the millions
Narcotic addiction is disease whose spread is
systematically promoted for profit by the most secre
tive criminal organization ever known The profit is
enormous, and the business is great that it is est
mated that S1S25, 100000 is spent each year for
cotc drugs in the United States alone This vast sum
-$18 for every man, woman and child in the nation
is wastefuy spent against the public health and inter-
est. No one knows exactly who gets this money and
of the millions of addicts only those are known whose
crimes physical breakdown take them to jail and
prisons hospitals and sanitariums. The citi-
zen 'does not know any addicts and yet they are all
around him, each addict potential spreader of the d
sease of addiction.
The growth of narcotic addiction in the United
States is the most alarming social symptom of the
new century. Until few years ago nearly all mar
cotc addiction in the United States the product
of medical practice. Addicts made by having
narcotic drugs, usually morphine, administered as
medicine during illness to alleviate pain produce
sleep, or by taking some patent medicine whose adver
tlsementS recommended 1t cure-all. The harrison
Anti-Narcotc Act, passed by Congress in 1914, was
aimed principally at this type of addiction.
Heroin, like morphine opium derivative,
discovered by European chemist in 1885, and intro
duced in America in 1909 the practice of medicine
under the belief that it not habt-formng. But
there narcotic drugs that not habit forming
Because of it's concentrated form, heroin recognz
ed at once capable of commercial exploitation
than any other drug The great expansion Of narcotic
addiction in America given impetus by heroin con-
tnues almost unchecked in spite of legal restraint and
efforts at salvage of victims. American addicts num-
bering in millions, crowd the criminal courts, prisons,
hospitals and sanitariums and all over tn ecountry
new insttutons-both penal and medical-are being
built to accommodate this "human wreckage."
Heroin added new and most serious phase to the
problem of narcotic addiction. Before the coming of
heroin, child addict was almost unknown. For the
most part, those affected of mature years and
those who had acquired addiction through illness
Heron however, reaches for the youth of the nation
going directly into the schools for recruits, and max
ing addcts not the result of medical treatment but
social pastme "Snow parties are not unknown
to high school boys and girls of many cities. Heroin,
a white powder, is called "snow by the underworld
Government experts, studying this problem, report
that youth will become addict after using
cotc drug seven days. and mature person in 30 days