Year: 1874

The Opium Eaters Of the United States.


From the Cincinnati Gazette.


Opium eaters are found among all
classes. Clergymen and lawyers whose
brains are overtaxed are often led to
adopt the fatal assistance of this drug,
and some of the finest flights at the
bar are In no small degree due to its
use. Many Of the hack writer's who
manufacture the sensation stories for
the cheap newspaper press work up to
the necessary excitement by eating
opium.


A large number of students at our
colleges are opium eaters. This fol-
lows as a matter of course the free use
of tobacco. If the excitement of the
latter be delight, how much greater
pleasure must there be in the more SUBJ
tie and refined excitement of opium,
and hence there are many talented
young eollegians who dream away their
time, and when they attend recitations
(which is seldom make free use of the
pony"


Large numbers of nervous ladies in
high station use opium to give new life
to their effete and exhausted frames;
perhaps the largest proportiOnate con-
sumption is among this class. They
prepare for the enjoyments of party,
or ball by the use of this stimulus,
and when it has brought the system to
its acme, they shine with unusual bril-
hancy. The use of stimulants as a
preparation for social enjoyments is
prodigious, and in large party per-
haps one-half the guests are keyed up
by opium or Bourbon to proper state
of felicity. The reason why opium is
becoming more popular is because its
devOtee need not incur the opprobrium
inseparable from the drunkard


He need carry no bottle with him,
and his breath will not smell of liquor.
His stock can be put in his vest pocket,
and can be used imperceptibly to the
world. Having these advantages over
fire water, we do not wonder at the In
crease of the former, and the only rea-
son why it does not become almost
universal as substitute for alcoholic
drinks is simply because they are So
cial while opium is not.


The result of this general use Of
opium is now beginning to show itself
through the country. The question
now is, how shall the evil be arrested
/ Among other means we have the adver-
tisements of quacks, who offer a remedy
for the shattered constitutions and the
half lunatic intellects which are the re-
suit of this habit, but being quacks
they only suggest the evil without
showing a way of escaping it. Instead
of asylums for cure, we need to check
the evil in its inception, and its danger
should be clearly published. Let every
one who may be tempted to adopt the
assistance or the fascination of this
pernieious drug learn that its use can
only result In intellectual and physical
ruin.


1t appears from the Custom-house re-
turns that the amount of opium i'm
ported into this country (rsaching now
nearly 250,0O0 pounds annually is ten
times more than it was thirty years
ago, and that, in the opinion of drug
gIsts and physicians, not more than
One-third is used for medical purposes.
In reply to questions sent to druggists
throughout the State, it was found that
they sold, without any prescription,
large quantities of opium, morphine.
and laudanum to individuals who are
in the habit of using it for its stimulat-
ing effect.


1t is used fully as extensively in the
country as IN the city; women are more
addicted to the habit than men, and
this species of intemperance prevails
more among the higher and better edu-
Gated classes than among the poorer
and more ignorant. 1t is singular
fact that amid the temperance reform
this pernicious habit should be revealed
as an evil worse IN some respects than
intoxication from alcohol