TRAFFIC IN DOPE

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20510, 28 May 1938, Page 10

TRAFFIC IN DOPE

PRACTICALLY STAMPED OUT INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION (Times Air Mail Service) LONDON, April 16 Drug addicts all over the world are finding it almost impossible to get supplies of cocaine, opium and heroin, so vigilant have the police of many countries become in stamping out the drug traffic, says the Daily Sketch. When these addicts do obtain supplies through secret sources they find they are about one-fifth the normal strength. The drugs are now so rare and so difficult to get that they are doped with harmless things like starch to increase weight. Anti-narcotic authorities have tightened up frontier controls, customs examinationsNo Smuggling It is now almost impossible for crews of Chinese and Japanese ships to smuggle opium ashore as they used to by swimming at night with the drug in a waterproof container. In Greece, secret manufacturing dens have been practically stamped out. In the Middle East and along the shores of Northern Africa, where children were addicts in thousands, it is rare to see a child ill through drugtaking. In Paris, New York, Cairo, Singapore, which drug traffickers choose for their headquarters, very few secret drug factories remain. Women traffickers in big cities, who distribute the drugs among their friends, have been cut off from the smugglers.