DOPED SMOKES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1946, 1 March 1919, Page 4

DOPED SMOKES.

LEGACY OF THE WAR

OLD CRIME REVIVES

Science is (he handmaid of crime. Not wittingly, hut none the less effectively. The police are grappling with a new form of frightfulness in the Australian capitals —the doped cigarette (says the Sydney Sun). The nervous excitement induced by the prolonged tension of the war gave birth to a vast army of unfortunates in Great Britain, who resorted to drugs to soothe their fretted nerves. Morphia was first patronised, then cocaine, and latterly heroin. The taste has changed, but the fashion lias remained. Crafty criminals —the culls of degenerate cliques at the great schools and universities —detected an opportunity to get rich quick with only a small chance of feeling the heavy hand of the law. In the lens of thousands of soldiers and sailors —home, overseas, and foreign thronging London, (hey found a wide field for their activities. The old dodges of confidence men had lost their lure. Against these the men were on their guard, hut what the Hash spieler could not do the soft -voiced syren with a cocaine cigarette could accomplish. TRAFFIC IN LONDON.

An/.ac headquarters in Horseferry Road, the Y.M.C.A. hostel in A!dwycb, Comforts Fund offices in We-dminster, soon became aware ol a new and insidious method of parting soldiers on leave from (heir hard-earned money. The method by which men art: thus fleeced and reduced to niter helplessness was explained by an official of a large soldiers' but.

“From what 1 have seen daring the last three or four weeks in the “■Strand.” he declared, "J am convinced of the existence in London nt the present lime of an unscrupulous cocaine cigarelle syndicate.

“Door fellows conic in here every night in a dazed condition, and without a penny in their pockets. I hey are not suffering from drink, but are (he victims of cocaine cigarette fiends. Here is a typical instance, “The other evening a Canadian sergeant-major came into the rest lounge. At first sight it appeared that he had taken 100 much drink, but did not smell of liquor, hi answer to a question, be explained

that be went into a cafe for a cup of coffee. While there it civilian spoke to him, and in the course conversation said, “Have a cigarette, old chap?” The sergeant-maj-or accepted the cigarette, and he remembered nothing more until ho found binh*elf here. “When lie had regained his senses 1 ascertained that he bad been robbed of £l7, and only a few shillings had been left in his possession. SAME STORY ALWAYS. “In almost every instance which hits come under my personal observation recently I heard the same story from the victims. They have met somebody, usually a man in a theatre, a music-hall, a picture palace, a restaurant, or drinking bar, and have been offered cigarettes. Not one soldier in a hundred will refuse a cigarette, and thus the drug fiends have discovered an apparently innocent weapon with which to strike their victims, and then roll them of all their money. UP-TO-DATE METHODS.

“It must not he supposed that men are attacked indiscriminately. Method and deliberation are employed by the agents who distribute cocaine cigarettes. In the preliminary stages loose women serve as decoys, and these pots hang round outside the pay offices all over London. When the soldiers and sailors draw their money, sometimes a* much as £SO and £OO in the case of overseas troops, the women accost them and dog their footsteps all day. In the meantime the male accomplices are notified, and in this way the female agents are able to elude capture by the police.” Confirmation of these statements was forthcoming at the large railway stations, chiefly Victoria and Waterloo, where practically every day in (he week “drugged” soldiers and sailors are picked up, unable to give the slightest account of then: movements. The Federal military authorities have discovered that this new school of criminals has crept into Australia, and all soldiers upon whom hospitality is generally pressed, and people disposed to lightly aecept a cigarette from a stranger, should give the unknown donor amiss in baulk for the present..