The Washington times. [volume], June 11, 1922, SUNDAY MORNING, Image 57

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
tsfi&Qam ? Underworld
I the Famous "Vamp," Who Worked in Partnership
ristocrats of the Criminal World
j ,
Millionaires, Explains How the
ff>Kinds of "Dope" Affect
s *
heir Slaves
?> ' For opium
in the luxu
rious and the
) sociable vice;
ilind the opium
' pipe, often of
; carved ivory
? inlaid, some
: times modelled
* hi' silver and
: gold and set
with precious
atones, is the
emblem of a
drugged, luxu
rious comerad
( trie.
j From opium,
! as I have said,
the next step
t is morphine.*
1 Morphine is
*hrt insidious,
i. imperative
drug used
atone in fran
tic self-de
? ?
fenae as ref
uge from dread
suffering. I
never heard of
a morphine
party. Topas8
around a nee
dle and jab
yourself
in company
would be con
sidered very low be
havior by the "hop
hSad," or opium
smoker. As opium
leaves behind it a
.peaceful effect, so
morphine leaves an
. effect doubly or
trebly peaceful. The
A Dirty Opium Dm in New York's Chinatown, Where Man and Women of All
Grades of Society Meet in Common Degradation as Slaves of the Drug.
mind is just at rest and the conscience stilled. It is be
cause of this that you will find that most gunmen, most
cruel, dastardly criminals, are opium and morphine users,
i since these two drugs deaden remorse and make the
. scoundrel forget, for a while, the twinges of repentance.
But what an awakening! What a penalty at last 1
fk l It is indeed a strange fact that people who use
opium, and freely acknowledged its use, will, neverthe
less lie?lie?lie about the use of morpjiine. For mor
phine, among drug addicts, is considered the most shame
ful vice. It is practiced in secret. It is sometimes injected
, ?this gives almost immediate eflfest, in twenty minutes,
at least. Again, morphine is taken inwardly, either in a
powder or diluted in water. An overdose of either opium
or morphine kills. But each drug is like arsenic?after
the body is gradually accustomed to more and more a dose
?can be taken by a confirmed user of either opium or mor
phine which would kill one hundred first users.
'"Style*" in Deadly Drugt
and in the Way of Taking Them
? '" In the smoking of opium, particularly, great care has
-to be taken to refrain from water drinking, especially at
*fyih?t. I remember, after Humphreyes had given me my
? 'first opium smoke, he carefully warned me not to touch
wAter for several hours. The first smoke of opium par
ticular!^ makes you thirsty. For this reason, in all well
appointed opium dens, big baskets of luscious fruits, or
anges, pears, peaches, plums and grapes?all juicy fruits?
'arc set around in tropic profusion.
There are notable cases where the person smoking
:"opium for the first time has drunk water and been cured
of the drug forever.
""Why, but it made me so very ill!" one well-known
actress said to me. "I.never could bear to try it again."
That, woman was more fortunate than she ever knew.
??!'': But. coming back to morphine, Ave must sec that its
has increased widely because of the tremendous rise
in: the price of opium. A little while before I started to
Urifoke opium you. could buy a large can for from two '
M five dollar*. When I smoked a gfcat deal the price
faad risen to fifty dollsrs, then it increased to one hundred
fifty some time later, which it is to-day. Now, aa
anyone can sec, opium is a rich msn's vice.
"iq But with the up-to-the-minute demi-mondaine to-day
The "stylish" vice is cocaine or heroin.
?q And the smart at well as the easiest and most instan
taneous way of takinf either is by sniffing. To be sure,
?Maine mmy be injected, as also may heroin. But none
of your "stylish" addicts ever would consider injecting it
The effect of sniffing is almost Instantaneous, and you
do not have to have any paraphernalia to take it this
way. There was a time, not so long ?(ro, in Paris and
smart places on the Continent, when fetching society
queens and women of the smartest underworld carried
little gold vanity cases on long chains, and sniffed their
heroin and cocaine thus handily, regardless. It was
nothing more to them' then than the smoking of a cigar
ette.
The drug fiend npay never escape detection at the
hands of another drug fiend. The opium user who becomes
an addict is known to another opium user, though the two
speak not the same language; though one live in a
palace and the other in a teeming tenement on the eastest
East Side. The opium user has, as one distinguishing
characteristic, an aloofness of manner, n "don't careness"
about him, aptly described by Tennyson in the poem "The
Lotus Eaters."
The morphine victim may be just as aloof, but he is
not so superior. He is inclined* to talk more. Both the
morphine user and the opium user never stand squarely
on their feet and look you right in the eye. They lean;
they slouch; they droop their heads; and when the ob
server by chance does steal a look into their eyea they
notice that the morphine and the opium has contracted
the pupils till they ve abnormally tiny. As for physical
habits, the use of these two drugs so affects the processes
of elimination that great care and artificial devices, in
confirmed addicts, are necessary to keep life functioning
at all. 'And always medicines have to be used to force
nature to her necessary tasks of waste removal.
The cocaine user, different from ihe opium and the mor
phine user, is alert, over enthusiastic, energetic, active,
restless and excited every minute he is under his drug.
He talks incessantly. He is a "leaper"?as the phrase is
interpreted to mean incessant action, endless activity.
He fidgets. He fumes. He never sleeps while under the
influence of cocaine. ?Hc develops exalted notions. He
imagines he can flght the world and beat whatever traits
or combines that ever were created. He feels more pow
erful than Caesar. If it happens to be a woman, ahe feels
more Icoquettish than Cleopatra and more beautiful than
Mary Queen of Scota, as welt aa more unfortunate.
The cocaine addict never is free from suspicion. And
he always ia sure that somebody ia waiting just aronnd
the corner to assassinate him.
I very well remember how one night 8ally Cowen,
whose unfortunate career I have dealt with in an earlier
chapter, awakened but whole howeehold with a graphic
Ths Crook Dan's Circular Lounge at HU Summer
Homo, Whara HU Criminal Friends Aro Invited
for Week-End Dope Parti**. There on That Big,
Round Divan, Seated Among the Soft Pillows, the
Men and Women of His Social Circle in the Underworld Stretch Out and Chat ??*d Smoke
Dose Off Into Dreams, \WhQe Dan's Skilled Attendant Cooks the Dope, Fills the Pipes and Ministers
to the Guests from the Little Opening in the Centre of That Criminal Circle.
description of two men who were cutting each other's
throats in our back yard. We investigated, and we found
' nobody at all in the yard. It was then that Sally stood
at the window and described in detail a-bloody battle be
tween two cutthroats, round by round. She insisted thst
she ssw it; to all intents and purposes she did see it.
The next day, when she had recovered from her frenzy
and I told her her miatake, she Insisted that one man had
cut another's throat in her presence while I snd my house
hold stood by snd refused to interfere. Sally really was
sure she wss right
The eocaine user is never hungry; and he can go five
or ten days without sleep. He may die at onee after the
tenth day, but he is setive up to the Isst minute. Th?
coca in p user is very destructive. I hsve seen smsrt
women, while under the influence of the drug, tesr a
five hundred-dollar dinner dress to pieces, while trem
bling with fear of the imaginary voices of imaginary bur
glars, whom they think they hear and see.
Sniffed, cocaine and heroin have an immediate effect.
A small quantity of heroin will produce much grester
effect than a corresponding quantity of any other drug.
Recently there have been many deaths reported from
overdoses of heroin. This was due, when it happened un
intentionally, to the fact that heroin is seldom sold pure
strength. The drug peddlers dilute heroin and cocaine
also with sugar of milk. It is impossibly jo ssy how much
hiroin there is to s qusntity of the specified drug without
a chemicsl anal/sis.
There is one very interesting thing about cocsine, to
me. Thst is that the cocsine user hss a mania for being
near water. And if the water be running so much the
better. Cocsine makes most every sddict very thirsty.
Fronr4his fadt it is essy to see why cocsine users so often
hide their drug under bath tubs or behind mirrors, over
wa*h bowls in bathrooms; why, when making arrests of
cocaine users, so msny sre apprehended near publio bath
houses and comfort stations.
Ether and Hathith Now
the "Fashionable" Drug$ Abroad
Ether and hashish arc not so common in this country
as drugs as yet. But in Prance, and especially in the
Montmartre quarter, .they are very common. I have
seen, in exquisite drug dens there, beautiful young French
girls saturate their faces with ether, place over it a wet
ether cloth and go to sleep. I hsve also seen at the very
smsrt restaurants more than ohe distinguished gentleman,
off to Paris for a holiday, led out of the dining room, hope
lessly drunk?so hopelessly drunk that two persons had
to suppor} him.
In a little retiring room a nurse, kept for thst pur
pose, treated the man with ether untiPin half an hour
he stood on his feet snd left, absolutely sober. Such sn
effect does ether have when applied according to science
after certain liquors hsve been drunk.
Hssliish is a drug made from Indian hemp. It wns
never, in my experience, a pet vice of smsrt |>cople. In
Paris, particularly in the gunman and.gangster sections,
it is a favorite drug. There is a saying in Paris, "the
hashish makes the Apache dance," snd so it is. I hsve
'witnessed dances wierd, wild, exotia, by Apsches in
French dens, Apaches full of hashish. Most hsshish dens
sre in lo# cellars and vile habitations, in such countries
as Mexico, Cuba, South America, and France.
Which brings us to the subject of a cure. First of all,
with eocaine. This habit la more eaaily cored than any
other of the drugs. With all the others, however, bo
eure is wrought inside of three months. I have read
hi the papers lately, of one-weak cures and three-wvek
eurea, and I, aa a wsa who has battled fojr^her cure,
fr
doua nonsense even these three-month eures are generally
Two yean are none too abort for many addieta. Any
cure, under six months, I would 4all pretty ineffectual.
For, with the addict, it is not enough to take away the
drug. The nerves must be built up the nervea shattered
by years of drugs, till they will not clamor for the poison.
What was wrought slowly must be remedied slowly.
With opium, the user can cure himself without going
to a sanitarium, though, for all the other drugs a sani
tarium, I should say, was the only thing. This is one way
the opium habit may be cured: Take a bottle and fill
it half full of liquid opium. Fill the other half with
sherry wine. Each day take from the bottle a tablespoon*
ful of the mixture and, as this is removed, fill it up with
pure sherry. After a while the mixture will be nothing
but wine. Keeping to this daily diminishing drag, tha
opium slave will be uncomfortable; he will suffer, but not
as when morphine is taken from him, and not unbearably.
No*, as for the amount of the dose of various drugs.
At an opium party of, say, six guests, at least ten pilla
would be smoked by each guest, if each was a seasoned
smoker. The young woman smoker for her first tima
is told to stop at one or two pills. It would be better for
her to do this. Ten pills would kill her. When the opium
pleasure smoker lias acquired what is called the habit he
has a one-a,-day habit or a two-a-day habit or a threc-a-day
- habit. This means that if he does not get his opium once
or twice or three times each day he develops what is tech
nically known as a "yen."
When a victim has a "yen on" his eyes water, he yawns,
he aches in every nerve of his body, with an ache which
is exactly like a toothache, but it is everywhere. And how
he perspires! He suffers alternate chills and fever. Drops
of sweat stand out on his forehead. The pains of child
birth, severe, racking, torturing while they last, are as
nothing to the pains of opium or morphine denied. And
I know, for I have borne two children. Coming to mor
phine, a dose of one-fourth of a grain is considered ample
for the first user. But as the user persists the doRe is in
creased, till ten grains are easily consumed. DeQuineey,
the English author, who wrote the "Confessions of an
Opium Eater, ate opium, and did not smoke it. Toward
Ihe end of his career he ate a dose which amounted to
sixty grains daily.
This, so far as ray knowledge and experience go, is the
largest amount known to have been consumed daily by
one single person. But this amount De Quinccy did not
need to get all the effect possible from the drug. He
merely imagined he needed that amount. If kind old
nature had riot arranged a means of throwing off mueh
of this unassimilated opium l)e Quincey would have died
of his sixty grains. Ten, or at most twenty, grains supply
to the addict all the false and menacing "kick" there is
in opium.
I would like to end this article with a simple warning:
Young man?young woman, shun like the plague the per
son who first asks you to smoke for a lark. That's the
way most every shameful, down-into-the-gutter addict has
developed. And just remember, when the drug has got
you, you will never be able to explain the despair you feel
on looking at the little black opium pill. "So small?and
yet it is my absolute master 1" is what you will tell your
self in agony of spirit.
For this is the law and the gospel of the whola matter.
There never wm an addict, through all the length had
breadth of the earth, but angufahed in his heart far *
cure; hat prayed, with whatever prayers he knew, far a
cure. But tha percentage of the drag naera wha are
cured is twa out of ten. The time to stop ia before jm
hare begun.
(Ta fa Cswliwyd Hmi fwidag)
?