Drug Addicts in United States.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 March 1922, Page 1

Drug Addicts in United States.

' NUMBER TWO MILLION. SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 7. The police officials, the medical profession, and Government experts, who hade been exhaustively studying the question from all its angles, have issued a statement in New York, stating that narcotic drugs constitute the worst evil in America, an evil which, is the chief breeder of crime and the greatest menace to public health and mentality. # The use of illicit drugs has increased tremendously in the United States during the last few years, and statistics show that America uses Hi times more opium and its derivatives-—heroin and morphine—than any other country. The same is true of cocaine, obtained from the South American cocoa plant. Figures indicate that Americans now use as much opium as China did 15 years ago, the United States having supplanted China as the world’s greatest opium consumer, Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually for these habit-forming drugs—almost a billion dollars if statistical estimates are correct.

There is no way of.obtaining a reliable census of “dope” users. Dr Carlston Simon, Special Deputy-Police Commissioner of New York, head of the most elaborate police uarcotic division in the country, and chairman of the Narcotic Police Conference of the United States, at a conference in which 381 American cities are represented, conservatively estimates that New York City alone has 20,000 addicts. Proportionately, therefore, the United States has 400,000 addicts, who consume 200 tons of narcotics a year! Ralph O.vler, chief of the Sew York narcotic squad of the Internal Revenue Bureau, who has had eleven years in the Federal narcotic service all over the country, says the illicit drug traffic is greatest, in proportion to population, in Toledo, Kansas City, and St Paul. Among the larger cites, O.vler says, narcotic conditions arc worst in New York, Philadelphia. San Francisco and Chicago. M UCJ-1 ADULTERATION.

Recently the traffic has been greatly choeUed in New York, according to Dr Simon and Chief O.vler. Philadelphia is taking New York’s place as the greatest smuggling port. Both these officials agree that there are fewer drug addicts, but the quantity of “dope” consumed is greater, owing to lower

prices prevailing. They have found that most drug addicts use cocaine and heroin, both of which are stimulants. Morphine has the opposite or quieting effect, and only one in ten uses morphine. Relatively few smoke opium, though this habit is increasing.

Just as liquor bootleggers dilute whisky, drug vendors adulterate cocaine and heroin with sugar of milk. Their profits are tremendous. One-eighth of a grain of “dope” will put a normal person to sleep for many hours, but some addicts use front 5 to 30 grains a day! Some would make great inroads into an ounce—lßo grains —if they could get it!

Chief Oyler estimates the average consumption of a single addict at an ounce a month. Dr Simon’s survey agrees with this. He says an addict spends from 5 dollars to 8 dollars a day for drugs. The enormous cost of this contrahand—beside which bootleg whisky is cheap and plentiful—is the thing that breeds crime, says Dr Simon. Smuggling on a large scale is responsible for bringing in most of the illicit drugs. Forged permits sometimes are used to withdraw the contraband from Government warehouses. Similar to liquor smuggling, the immense drug traffic is made possible because of lack of sufficient Federal force to stop smuggling.

“The system operates so efficiently,” says |)r Simon, “that when a smuggler mys his drugs abroad lie is given names of dealers in the United States to whom he can sell his cargo.”

Profits of illicit drug traffickers arc even ' more enormous than of liquor boot loggers. A smuggler or “wholesaler.” can buy narcotics in Europe for 90 dollars a kilo, which is 36 dollars a pound, or 3 dollars an ounce. In 1920, before prices dropped, lie could sell to retail vendors for 600 dollars a pound or 50 dollars an ounce —a profit of 1600 per cent. The present price is 12 dollars to 14 dollars an ounce or 150 dollars a pound—a profit of more than 300 pier cent. If he adulterates it his profit may reach 1000 per cent. Street vendors usually adulterate the drugs, and, selling it by the “deck” of from one-half to five grains or the bottle of from eight to ten grains, get from 50 dollars to 400 dollars an ounce. The ounce, or 2160 dollars a pound—a profit of 1300 per cent!