Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1919 — Million Drug Addicts in U. S. [ARTICLE]

Million Drug Addicts in U. S.

Nation Leads World in Illicit “ Dope” Traffic Report to Government Shows

The special narcotic committee appointed by former Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo to investigate the drug traffic in the United States has completed its report and presented it to Secretary of the Treasury Glass. The report is of a most sensational character. It shows the United States as the largest consumer of drugs in the world, with more than a million addicts, and mbre than $61,000,000 spent annually by drug users to satisfy the habit. It also shows a national organization of “dope peddlers,” who carry on a lucrative trade in drugs smuggled from Canada, Mexico and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Although the peace conference has already taken action to protect China from the spread of the opium habit, the repoit shows the United States to exceed China and lead the entire world in the consumption of opium. Our annual consumption of opium is so extensive as to be able to furnish 33 grains of opium yearly to every man, wotnan and child in the country. . ' The committee’s table for the per capita consumption by the United States and foreign countries is a grim story in itself. The table follows. Opium total Consumpannual tion, : . consumption, per capita, Country— Population. lbs. grains. ‘ United States 100,000,000 470,000 33 Holland 6,000,000 3,000 3% France .....■• 40,000,000 17,000 3 Portugal •. ••. 5,500,000 2,000 2 Germany 60,000,000 ~ qj, ;..^Tr::.\ r ;T;T^r aooo Austria";... 40,000,000 8.000-4,000 1% 3-5 Ninety per cent of the drugs consumed in this country are used for other than medicinal purposes, and opium comes in this category, according to the report. The traffic is increasing by leaps and bounds. Practically all of the larger cities report increase, and one estimate of the nation’s number of addicts included in the report is 4,000,000 persons. The committee’s figure of 1,000,000 is thereby shown to be conservative. One-quarter of these 1,000,000 drug users, or 250,000, are unemployed. In this respect alone the traffic caused the country an annual loss in wages of more than $150,000,000. It is ,estimated that 237,655 persons are receiving treatment in an effort to loosen the hold drugs have on them. The strides the peril is taking, though, are shown by the estimate that 18,299,397 narcotic preecriptons were filled in the last year. • One of the most painful features of the report is that depicting the native-born American as leading in the consumption of drugs.