COCAINE SCOURGE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 42, 13 November 1920, Page 14

COCAINE SCOURGE

ALARMING SPREAD IN LONDON.

■The deadly cocaino habit, is spreading with alarming rapidity in London, despite tho fact that it is a criminal olfenco to sell tho drug or to have it .111 olio's possession, according to the Daily and west of the metropolis there are scores of men and women engaged solely in trafficking in cocaine, which is eagerly bought at hundreds of tunes its ordinary market value by social decadents who -tako it for the temporary feeling of exhilaration it gives, careless of its power of destroying mind and body. , . Cocaine is-derived from a plant grown in South America. It is in tho fpnn ot a very fino white powder, nnd ib inhaled through'the nose liko enulF. Before tho war it cost 2Jd. an ounce. During the first years of the war the price was somewhere about ss. an ounce, tho increase being due to a great demand for it by certain soldicra. . later 86 the cocaine liabit spread, tho price was further enhanced, and to-day as much as JCSOO ht\s been paid for a single ounce. . ; A pinch of pure cocaine is fatal, as in the case of the actress Billio Cnrleton. It is smuggled over by foreign sailors in' its pure state, disposed of to unscrupulous dealers - for *£;> and ,£lO. an ounce, and then passes through various hands at ever-increasing rates. Drtifr-Mkera buy COM inn in an adulterated'* form. It, is mixed with a feather-weight, powdor called milk-sugar, which is added at tho rato of 90 or 95 per cent., nnd is then wrapped up in iiasue-paper. Occasionally phials and pill-boxes are used. , There is no more insidious poison. Its first effect is to produce great physical and mental exaltation. Then comes a,feeling of hopeless nnd helpless . depression, nnd in many cases insanity and death follow.- $ One viotiin was a young woman of gentlo birth. She used to pay considerable sums for the drug. When her money waß exhausted she exchanged nor fur coat for a pinch. She sank into the gutter nnd some timo ago died in an asylum. In 191G regulations were passed under the Defence of tho Realm Act prohibiting its sale and possession. Before then it was a common thing to see nueues of mon and women formed up in West End streets waiting' their turn to buy* the drug. . 1, The vicious business continues to thrive, however, 'and it seems as if only still severer penalties will check it. If a-' man . administered strychnine to another and death followed ho would bo charged with murder. Why cannot the same'law apply to cocaine? (»,