Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 137, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1910 — WORSE THAN OPIUM. [ARTICLE]

WORSE THAN OPIUM.

(later Kind of Smoke Which Starts In Boyhood Days on Farm. “Opium smoking isn't in it with po-tato-stem smoking,” states a doctor. “Usually the vice—and there are more victims than you would imagine—■tarts in boyhood days on the farm, when the youngster of the family steals his father’s pipe and hides with it and some matches down behind the garden fence or behind the barn next to the field potatoes. He doesn’t dare to take up the straight tobacco, but he tries out some dried potato stams in the pipe. “The smoke sets the experimente# into'a delicious dreamy state at first, but the heart action accelerates in a minute or two in'an effort to throw off the poison through the lungs and skin. The dreamy state quickly disappears, the face gets flushed and the heart action rapidly increases to severe palpitation. “if the dose has been large the victim feels a wild, fierce elation that impels him to action o£ any kin'd. in this state he may do anything, but the stage is reached much more quickly than with alcoholic liquors. “At this stage the heart action weakens and there is either stupor or syncope, in which the victim of the potato poison lies practically paralyzedeand unable to move, while his brain is in an insane whirl. This represents the height of the intoxication, and it is followed by acute depression and melancholia and a slow return of the physical powers. “The potato stem smoke Speedily draws a victim down. He jjrows pale is gaunt and emaciated, ends up with violent acute mania, usually with homicidal tendencies. “I had one case of the kind. A boy of 16 caught the habit trying to find a substitute for tojjaceo. He only lasted about three years. There wasn't anything that could be done for him. “This young chap couldn't be restrained or changed from the potato stem craving by any of the usual drugs. He was kept in bed, roped down during the maniacal stage that he went through. Morphine didn’t seem to do any good. The moment he was freed, after recovering somewhat, he would make a rush for the nearest potato vines, trying to get and smok--the stems, which he secreted in many places cunningly hidden.”