DRUG-SODDEN EGYPT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 883, 29 January 1930, Page 9

DRUG-SODDEN EGYPT

STARTLING EVIDENCE OF SYNDICATES’ WORK WORK PEOPLE UNDERMINED Times Cable. Reed. 11.30 a.m. GENEVA, Tuesday. How Egypt passed from the comparatively harmless stage of hasheesh consumption te» cocaine which a Greek chemist, now in prison, introduced after the war, and later to heroin, with half a million addicts at the present time, was related by General Russell, formerly Deputy-Director of Medical Services, before the Drug Committee of the League of Nations. General Russell said it was a great mistake to imagine that only the idle rich, demi-mondaines and slumdwellers were addicted. The chief sufferers were peasants and landworkers. Before the arrival of cocaine and heroin, there never was a more cheerful nor more hard-working community than the Egyptian peasants. Now the smallest village held its victims. The flower of the nation’s youth was addicted. Was it fair to allow Europe to pour tons of poison into Egypt? He asked. If only the committee knew the abject misery caused to scores of thousands of addicts, they would lose no time in acting. The European delegates unanimously applauded General Russell’s efforts and the Swiss delegate especially thanked him for unearthing the Swiss drug factories. General Russell said the price of heroin had risen in four years from £75 a kilogram to £3,000.