Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1915 — 200,000 USE DRUGS [ARTICLE]

200,000 USE DRUGS

Number of Addicts in' United States Overestimated. Officials of the Government Public Health Service Make Thorough Investigation of the Matter — Figures Based on Tax. Washington.—While holding it true that the amount of opium and coca consumed in this country annually is cut of all proportion to the actual need for medicinal purposes. Martin L Wilbert, technical assistant, division of pharmacology, hygienic laboratory of the United States public health service, is of the opinion that the number of drhg fiends is overestimated. To correct existing impressions the health service has been looking into the subject. Practically all the opium and coca used in this country is imported through legitimate channels, Mr. Wilbert finds. Because of the comparatively high import tax, care is exercised to Insure the reporting and recording of all the products so that fairly accurate data are at the disposal of the Investigator. The records show that for several years the total amount of Buch drugs imported has been fairly uniform and will aggregate an average of approximately 2,500,000,000 doses of opium, its derivatives and alkaloids, and 325,000,000 doses of coca leaves and cocaine. These figures serve to definitely fix the amount of available material, and quite regardless of the proportion of the several drugs that may be used legitimately or illegitimately, the sum total of Illegitimate use cannot well exceed the sum total of the available material.

The Investigator found a rather interesting source of ’information regarding the actual number and kind of addicts through the reports of the enforcement of the Tennessee antinarcotic law of 1913. Lucian P. Brown, the state food and drugs commissioner of Tennessee, in a recent report says that after 12 months of operation there were registered in the state of Tennessee under the provisions of the antinarcotic law 2,370 persons of all ages and color. “The average consumption per day of morphine addicts was 8.5 grains, or approximately 1,000 doses each montET or 12,000 doses a year,” said Mr. Wilbert “Tennessee contains slightly more than 2 per cent of the total population of the United States, and on the supposition that the same ratio of addicts and the amount of material consumed will hold good