DRUG DRINKER AND MAGISTRATE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 320, 11 January 1909, Page 3

DRUG DRINKER AND MAGISTRATE.

STARTLING ADVICE FROM THE BENCH. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Cfiristchurch, January 6. A case heard yesterday in the Christchurch Magistrate's Court revaled a defect in the Habitual Dnuikaras Act ■which, demands (says the Press) the attention of Parliament. An unfortunate man was charged with drunkenness and the breach of a prohibition order. Apparently when, as a prohibited person, he cannot procure drink he falls back on drugs, and he has acquired the habit of drinking chlorodyne. Conscious of his own weakness, he begged the Magistrate to commit him to the Inebriates' JHoine at Pakatoa Island for two years ja the hope that the enforced abstention ifrom both drinking and drugs might isave him from the terrible consequences of liis failing. To come under the provisions of the Habitual Drunkards' Act, a man must be convicted of drunkenness three times in. nine months. The man before the Court yesterday has only two convictions against his name, and the Magistrate, unable to grant his request, could do no more than to tell him that the best thing he could do was to get drunk and be arrested again. He would then be an habitual drunkard in the eyes of the law, and could be dealt with as he desired. It is a serious defect in an Act which is otherwise a useful measure that it wakes no provision for the committal to an inebriates' home of men who, though not legally "habitual drunkards," may recognise that, in being placed beyond the means of yielding to temptation, lies their only nope of reform. The law enables a man to take .out a prohibition order against hiniraelf and it should permit him, if he ■wishes, to take still stronger measures to help him fight the craving for drink or drugs. Parliament should certainly amend the law in the direction of enabling magistrates to commit to Pakatoa anyone who voluntarily, and for sufficient reasons, wishes to work out Ids own reform.