Douglas daily dispatch., 1928-02-19

Sometimes they carry 1t in such q
small roll that 1T can be hidden in
the mouth. Often they do q slight
of-hand in passing tho paper to the
mouth and hiding 1t, even while
they are being searched. At times
they put it beneath the tongue"
More battling than any the col
lector indicated was a case which
required the services Of doctor
to recover the drug. There was a
container with IA grains recovered.
People Help in Suppression.
Peddling drugs, according to the
collector, is one OF the hardest of
offences to combat that the officers
have to fight. His reasons are that
the peddlers usually encourage new
addicts and, by building up their
trade in new ones they are certain
of the trade for the reason that the
beginner is using the drug elRndes-
timely and is afraid to go to any
other peddler than the one from
whom they learned the habit. That,
in his view, is one of the dangers
of the traffic because it Is a real
danger to have ,the habit carried
to the boys and girls OF the nation.
But in the fight against the ped
dlers, the collector says he finds
one of the most hopeful signs of
the contest. He says that there is
a generalA willingness on the part of
all people to help combat the drug
habit, both by uncovering the ped
der, the smuggler fand the addict
This, he points out, is different to
the general attitude toward the tn
forcement OF the law against the
liquor bootlegger. The difference
in the attitude, he thinks, Is be-
cause of the horror that is mentally
pictured of one addicted to the use
OF drugs. ~
If the number using drugs was
accurately known, Collector Specht
believes, it would prove to be a
small percentage OF the whole pop
UIation and with the present senti-
nient toward the use iof drugs by
the people aud the efforts that ate
constantly being made to hold the
nabit in check, he lsays 5hese arc
good grounds for hoping that it not
only will not increase, but that 1t
will actually he reduced. Collector
Specht is neither visionary nor
a moralist when ne talks about
the drug habits as seen from his
position as an enforcement officer.
He does not forecast time when
addiction to drugs will ever be
tlotted out, because he knows too
much of human nature Neither
Goes he doom the race because nf
what he has found Of h, lie be-
lieves that it is growing smaller
and that it must be kept down or
if it is allowed ,tQ increase, it might
easily become worse menace than
liquor could under any conceiyeable
condition ever be.
One thing that the collector
points out is that drug addiction
seems to be based on mystery No
one wants his habit to become gem
orally known. Because of that fact.
he thinks there are perhaps a con-
siderable number who have the
habit mildly but are known to he
users only to their peddler. He
thinks that probably the larger
number of users get their start in
flaming youth when they have a
notion that they can, using an
American street vernacular. try any
thing once and then stop, They
do it, he thinks, ilnerely to get a
measure of the effect Of the stimu-
liant and having trssd IT,, they tempt
nature again until finally they dis
cover they were in error about their
ability to quit and are doomed as
addicts. 1T is because lof this dan
gerous possibility that the collector
suggests that every parent as we'll
as every good citizen ought to bo
constantly watchful and help pro-
tect youth against that danger.
In some tof the Jmore populous
centers there is a worse problem
than is encountered here. In those
centers the drug ipeddler at times.
it has been disclosed solicits for
customers among the school boys
and girls and is frequently found
to have established customers with
in their circle. That, too, has been
charged against the fpeddlers in
some of the colleges of the coun-
try, but facilities and school au-
thorities are keenly alive to the
dangers and that sort of work is be-
lieved to be rare and the contacts
of the pedler quite few.