Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1915 — DEMOCRATIC NEWS LETTER. [ARTICLE]

DEMOCRATIC NEWS LETTER.

[By Lew Ellingham.]

The new federal drug act which ‘went into effect on March 1, is perhaps the most important law of its kind. It is directed at the drug habit, and is a very stringent law enactment.. Dope users are the ones affected, and now it takes a prescription from a physician to get any of the many drugs that come under the ban of this law. A narcotic law was much discussed by the legislature just closed, but if half that appears true in regard to the federal law, nothing more is necessary to clean up the nefarious business of dealing in these deadly drugs. While Indiana is not known as a state that indulges to extent in this habit, yet the cutting out of the supply is revealing many heart rending conditions. Many cases are now in the Indianapolis hospitals and it is thought that in the state the number of users of drugs will figure in the thousands. —-:o:The department of state is just ■at this time a busy institution. In addition to the large and growing volume of state business that is transacted there, the publication of the Acts ‘of the 1915 legislature falls their lot. They prepare the copy and compare It with the engrossed bills, and then they read the proof twice and in these readings the proof is compared with the engrossed bills. In addition to this work they sub-head all the laws and index them so that any law can be easily referred to. The Acts of the sixty-ninth general assembly will contain about one hundred and ninety la,ws. as against three hundred and sixty-seven two years ago. It will make a real husky volume, however, as many of the laws enacted are quite lengthy.