THE DOPE FIENDS by Daniel H. Kress, M. D.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 19, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, December 19, 1916

THE DOPE FIENDS

By Daniel H. Kress, M. D.

Those Already Made, and Those Who Are Still in the Making

By Daniel H. Kress, M. D.

THE campaign against the drug evil has again been revived by the New York State Anti-Drug League. Last year the league failed in securing legislation to stamp out the traffic in habit-forming drugs. Thousands of public-spirited men and women are back of the movement, determined to obtain what they failed to obtain last year.

In a special to the Washington Herald, September 18, it is said: "The dire need of such a law is emphasized by statements from leading criminologists, members of the bar, and heads of corrective institutions. In New York City alone, authorities agree, are more than one hundred thousand persons who are slaves to the drug evil.

"More than fifty per cent of the inmates of the state prisons owe their downfall, it is declared, to the use of habit-forming drugs. Of the men convicted of the most revolting crimes, more than eighty per cent used habit-forming drugs. Among the underworld, nine out of every ten men and women are drug addicts."

Dope Fiends Among the High-Ups

Drug addiction is not confined to the underworld. It is almost as common among the high-ups. It is also common among literary men and women. Scores of magazine stories, and most of the cheap novels and sensational books of fiction, are written by men and women who receive their inspiration from some habit-forming drug, as cocaine or heroin.

Cocaine is possibly the most dangerous of all drugs. There is no treatment known to science as yet that will cure the habit when once it is thoroughly established. It does not intoxicate like alcohol. It imparts a sense of strength, courage, and self-confidence, unlike any other drug. It imparts a flow of language and a sense of mental clearness as no other drug does. In this lies its fascination. Heroin and cocaine are the two most dangerous drugs we have to deal with in America. Whenever the use of alcoholic beverages is prohibited, men and women seem to resort more and more to the use of these drugs. In the South, among the Negroes, the traffic in these drugs is a constant menace. In England, it now has a strong hold among the soldiers. In America, there are probably more drug fiends in proportion to the population than in any other country in the world.

In speaking of drug addictions, we refer merely to such drugs as cocaine, heroin, and morphine. If these were the only habit-forming drugs consumed in America, it would be a serious enough problem; but there is one habit-forming drug, the use of which is now so common that we seem to ignore it entirely. It holds one hundred victims to every one held by the three others mentioned, and the injury resulting from its use is little short of that resulting from the use of the others. I refer to the inhalation of cigarette and tobacco smoke.

Tobacco and Degeneracy

Tobacco smoke inhalation, as practiced by the boys of America, is doing more to ruin America than opium smoking ever did in ruining China. In China, the smoking of opium was confined to adults almost wholly; while in America, the inhaling of tobacco smoke begins at an age when the brain is undeveloped. Boys who form this habit at the tender age of eleven or twelve years, the age when it is usually formed, are seriously injured. They become moral degenerates, as a rule.

There was a time when I thought this degeneracy was due to heredity, and that cigarette smoking was merely the outgrowth of it, or an evidence of degeneracy; but in dealing with these boys, I have been forced to the conclusion that heredity has not so much to do with it as I once thought it had. Just recently I had before me two boys, both twenty years of age. They both began to smoke at the age of twelve. The one was a waif picked up by two mission workers in one of our large cities. Nothing is known of his heredity. Naturally we would attribute his moral degeneracy to his heredity. The other is the son of a prominent man, both father and mother having a pedigree that is almost blameless. The father never smoked nor used intoxicants, and has always been temperate in his habits; yet this boy is just as much of a degenerate as is the other. Humanly speaking they are both hopeless moral degenerates. Nothing but the grace of God can ever help either of them. Such boys cannot be helped much unless they are placed under restraint for a prolonged period, under good moral and religious influences, and treated as we would treat any other drug addict.

We have hundreds of thousands of such boys in the United States. What will our future men be like, and what hope can there be of the future of the nation itself, if this evil is permitted to sweep in and ruin for life the best and most promising of our future men?

The Greatest Caffeine Users

No other country in the world consumes anywhere near the amount of caffeine per capita that we consume in America. One third of the coffee crop of the world comes to America. Over one hundred soft drinks containing caffeine are sold at our soda fountains. A few years ago, coca cola not merely contained caffeine, but in addition, it had in it traces of cocaine. What it now contains in addition to caffeine I do not know. There are a great many coca cola fiends in America. Most of these are nervous wrecks. The step from coca cola to heroin or cocaine is a short one.

Coffee is used freely in our homes by children. The drug caffeine produces nervousness, and creates a craving for other narcotics, and so leads to the use of cigarettes by boys and women, as well as by men; and later some of these victims are led to the use of heroin or cocaine. From coffee to coca cola, to the cigarette, to drink, and then to heroin and cocaine, are merely so many successive steps in the making of the dope fiend.

The boy who learns to drink tea or coffee at his mother's knee is on a fair way to become a dope fiend. In our fight against habit-forming drugs, it is well for mothers to remember this at least.

About Cocoa and Chocolate

In giving up tea and coffee, many take up with the use of cocoa and chocolate as beverages. While these products do not contain the same amount of caffeine as do coffee and tea, they do contain theobromine, a product identical with caffeine. Coffee contains 175 grains of caffeine to the pound; tea, 97 grains; and cocoa, 59 grains. There are many cocoa and chocolate addicts in the United States. All these beverages belong to the family of habit-forming drugs. Children should not be allowed to use cocoa, chocolate, and other beverages and products that tend to make them restless and nervous; for a nervous child naturally takes more readily to the cigarette, and to the use of other habit-forming drugs, than does the child that is in a normal condition.

The city of New York alone is estimated as having in it one hundred thousand victims of the heroin, cocaine, and opium habit. By all means, let us protect these poor, helpless victims, by laws which prohibit the sale of such drugs to them. But at the same time, let us remove the causes of this evil, by teaching our children, by precept and example, to abstain from the use of those things which create the craving for these drugs. While New York has one hundred thousand of the finished products, it has a great army of recruits back of them. The one hundred thousand dope fiends we are aiming to help are merely heading the procession. Marching behind them, ready to make up the ranks, are the dope fiends in the making. What is true of New York City is true of every city in the United States. We are fast becoming a nation of dope fiends.

Is there no remedy for the drug addict? Whenever possible, it is well to place such cases where they can have ideal moral surroundings, and where suitable treatments can be given. It is surprising, however, to notice what the gospel of Christ can accomplish for such cases. Again and again I have seen men and women freed from this slavery through a surrender of the will to God.

A few months ago, I was invited to a home. The head of the house, who was a confirmed morphine fiend, and had been for many years, wanted to see me, in the hope that he might get some medical aid in his efforts to obtain the mastery. He was certainly in a pitiable condition, and extremely nervous.

Saved from a Horrible Pit

I read to him the fortieth psalm: "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God," etc. Some other helpful scriptures were read. He finally came to the point where he was willing to endure the suffering, and even die, if necessary, in his fight for the mastery.

After a season of prayer, I left. Three months later, I had the satisfaction of learning that the victory was complete, and that now he is a member of the church. He is singing the new song, "even praise unto our God."

This is not the only case I have seen delivered without any outside help. The man at the Pool of Bethesda who had no one to aid him to reach the pool, and whose condition appeared hopeless, seemed to have been the special object of Jesus' compassion. We believe that Jesus is still searching for such to help them.