THE DRUG HABIT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10629, 7 May 1912, Page 4

THE DRUG HABIT.

A 1 tile knowledge is perhaps more dangerous in medicine than in most other things. iHviidence of chemists before the Foods C-ammi.&-moro sitting in Sydney .showed what •harm it ,c» sto some people, The President of the SharmaceutioaSi Board considered that .steps should be •token: to regulate tl*e- sale to the public of hypodermic 3yrmgee, and the drugs known as morphia and cocaine. His idea was that tlhey should not be aolW except upon the order of a doctor, a,nd then only (by a regi.ttered paarinaciat. Such a law, he 'said, was in force in many of ho States of North America,, where 'heavy punishment wais. infected upon those personsknown, as ,mo-phia and cocaine "dopers. * His prr?otise was to i J efu£>e to supply these drugs unless the person asking for them could ehow -that they would be used legitimately. He could adfely 4ay tihrft for every request to supply a pljjygiciani there xvnr'a twenty to supply nuraes and the public. A chemist 61 North Sydney followed (hun,, and deposed that 'there' was a corner of the city where morpho-man-'i-acs used ,t 0 congregate, and he had seen morphia used to such an extent that the people wiho tclok it were not responsible in the teaist for their actions. It was ea.sy now to puT'chatee Excise drugs, a!nd people drifted into the 'habit before they recognised the danger. Ho had seen a mother supplied with a hypodermic syringe while suckling her child. A third witness, a doctor, detailed a crtse in w'hidh he bad been treating ai lady for ak/ohojie exoesks, and liaid .succeeded well; hut she -had gone to th local chmist:, told her symptoms,and been given a preparation containing ir.udj alcohol, ( aaid hie work 'had 'been .undone. The idea of publishing the composition of mediQi'He met wiitjh littiie support, as i.t was tiHouglit ithat it condoned to the use of drugs. One witness said the introduction of tablets hr?d had tlhat effect. Mentioning .tiiriee drugs wbicih were •used .in* sleeplemiless, he said that :if the names of "these appeared on the 'label of the medicine bottle harm wag sure to result. Aaro'ther witness asserted that 'he had known oa<ses in which the drug habit had been .acquired through, a' knowledge- of the eonftentg. of prescriptions, l't might be argued, however, tha't '#lese unfortunates were w<er*k persons-, wifto, if they had nlot been gilillty of one excess, would almost certainly have beien guilty of another.