200,000 DRUG GRAVERS.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 June 1919, Page 3

200,000 DRUG GRAVERS.

"AN EFFECT OF AMERICAN LIQUOR PROHIBITION. The Health Commissioner for New York, Dr. Copeland, attributes "the curse in great measure to the inability of those accustonred to stimulants to procure whisky (says the New York correspondent of the "Daily Mail”), He declares there are _to—day between 200.000 and 300,000 drug-takers in New York alone, and that the metroplois is facing the “gravest narcotic menace in its hiStol'Y_-” What is true of New York is true of other great cities of the United States. The Federal authorities have ‘conducted a series of raids and arrested a nmnber of doctors "and chemistg who have been illegally catering to the Cravings of drug fiends. They have made amazing discoveries. In ‘the last’ six months no fewer than 1,500,000 pre:<cl'iptionS, H for narcotics have been given hythirty New York doctors alone] "One medical man arrested has been in __the‘habit of prescribing for over 1000 patients daily.

Prescriptions iiavgey-‘been made out with the aid of :1 staff of clerks, and filled ‘by chemists who dispensed cocaine at the rate of £2O an ounce—a, profit of over 500 per cent_ A result of the raids has been the entire suspension of the activities of the doctors in treating narcotic patients, who, deprived of drugs, have been wandering the streets in agony, The Health Commissioner, 113:3‘ therefore. opened municipal “drug clin; ic.<,” where patients abandoned by doctors can obtain relief at cost These clinics, it is announced, will remain open day and night until further notice. V The newspapers are devoting COl--to descriptions of the motley crowd of human wrecks seeking admission to the clinics, .and to narrating the individual histories of the patic_nts, three out of four of whom are under 25 years of age.