INCREASING USE OF NARCOTICS.
If alcoholic intemperance were the only evil thing which confronted the true reformer, there would be more hope; but it is questionable whether the use of tobacco, opium, morphine, and other narcotics, is not doing far more injury to the people than the use of alcohol, because so much more insidious. The increase of the use of narcotics may be indicated somewhat by the following, from the Rutland Herald, on the “Use of Narcotics” in said old Vermont:— “Dr. A. P. Grinnell, of Burlington, has been making some investigations as to the consumption of narcotics in Vermont, and the facts, as he finds them, are astonishing. We can hardly believe his statement that ‘in the regular drug-stores, and in 160 of the 172 general stores in the State of Vermont, there are sold every month 3,300,000 doses of opium, besides what is dispensed in patent medicines; and besides what the doctors dispense, which gives 1½ doses of opium to every man and woman in the State above the age of 21 years, every day of the year. By dose I mean one grain opium, one-eighth grain morphine, one-half ounce paregoric, and 20 drops laudanum. The amount consumed each month means a half-dose for every man, woman, and child in the State every day of the year.’” “Dr. Grinnell had considerable difficulty in getting at the facts. He was compelled to send a second series of letters on account of the incompleteness of some of the answers. ‘The amounts given in some instances,’ says the doctor, ‘were so large that I thought they must have estimated by the year instead of by the month, and I sent the questions back with a stamped envelope. They were returned with the statement that the reports were correct. When I tell you that in one place, so small that it hardly shows on the map, 3½ pounds of gum opium, six ounces of morphine, five pints of paregoric, five pints of laudanum, and three ounces of powdered quinine are consumed in a month, it will be hard for you to believe it. In another town where there are two drug-stores (one refused to give me any information, and in such cases I put it down as zero), one store alone sold three pounds of opium, one gallon of paregoric, three-fourths gallon laudanum, five ounces powdered quinine, and 1,000 two-grain quinine pills. Another store, situated not many miles from Burlington, sold only five ounces opium, two ounces morphine, eight quarts laudanum, and six of paregoric. This was a retail drug-store. A druggist in a town of considerable consequence replied that he did not sell very much of these things, so I put it down as zero. Another druggist in another town said, ‘I could not tell you, because I have no time to look over my books.’ I put that down as zero. And there were others who answered about the same way, or gave meager information, and I placed them all in the zero column.’” How can a people soaked in alcohol or stupefied by narcotics rightly weigh the tremendous moral issues of these times? What can be hoped of him who will follow the voice of such a people as the voice of God?