Young Bride in Jail Warns Girls of Drug

1915

Tells of Ended Romance and Fight Against Morphine

And so, this story of the tragic ending of a happy romance and a forlorn fight against the use of drugs, is a story with a moral.

LOS ANGELES, Cal., Dec. 16. — A little wanderer in the gray land of drugs tossed and turned on a cot in a cell at the matron's department of the city jail.

"Never take the first dose," she sobbed. "It's grip is terrible."

She was Mrs. James Dellarocca, 19 years old, and a bride of but three months.

In a separate cell on the floor below was her husband, facing a charge of forgery.

But even in the torment of her soul, that "little wanderer" sobbed that her next fight against the use of morphine would be a successful one, and with tears rolling down her cheeks told the story of her life in the clutches of drug habit.

How She Started

"When did I start?" she sobbed. "Oh, that is the worst part of the story. It was a woman who started me — a woman who said she was my friend. That was about four months ago. I knew that she was 'queer' — that is, she was a drug user.

"One day I was very sick. I had been ill for several weeks. I was suffering terribly. Then this woman came to me and told me she could relieve my suffering. I knew what she meant and I refused.

"She kept right after me. I was in agony. She said I could take it once and then not again. Finally I gave in. The pain was numbed.

"Oh, it's the same old story from then on. I could not stop.

"I was compelled to increase the dose every day. Inside of a few weeks I was taking a grain and a half.

She Meets Jimmy

"Then I met Jimmy" — Dellarocca — "it was love at first sight. I loved him. He asked me to marry him. I was foolish and told him yes. He did not know I was taking morphine. I decided it was best to tell him before we were married and I did so — two days before.

"I remember he put his arm around me and said, 'Never mind, little girl, you and I will fight it out together, you'll be all right in a little while.'

"We were married and we started to fight. We begun saving our money so that I could be cured. I could not stop, tho. I would take a little each day. But we fought hard and we smiled as we fought, because we were going to win.

"Then his business went broke. Our money went fast. He could not bear to see me in agony without morphine. He would buy it altho it hurt him to do it and give it to me.

"I became worse. The fight seemed hopeless. I was taking 2 grains three or four times a day. Then we were arrested.

"I am glad I have been arrested. I will have another chance to fight morphine. They tell me I can be cured and I am going to try, oh, so hard, for Jimmy's sake and my sake.

"Oh, tell girls never to touch drugs. Tell them to run from it. Tell them to stop their ears every time it is mentioned. Please do, 'cause it may do some good."

The "little wanderer" declared that her husband was innocent of the charge of the forgery of counter signatures to nine $100 checks.

"I will stay by him until the end," she sobbed as she turned her face to the wall.

Ether — Latest Vice in France

1910

Paris. — Compared to the new vice which has broken out in France, that of taking ether, drinking absinthe and injecting morphine are virtues. This most modern vice has already assumed abnormal proportions, probably because the sale of ether is free.

Consumers of ether begin by breathing its vapor. Soon this pleasing effect wears off, then they drink it, The consumption of ether is not confined to any special class of society. It is asserted that 40 per cent of the poorer classes who go to the dispensary of the prefect of police are ether fiends.

Physicians say that a pint and three-quarters is as much as anyone can safely take in a day. However, druggists say that they have customers who use about four times that amount.


Drink Scourge in France

What the French call "alcoholisme" has grown to be a dreadful scourge, and a direful portent for the future of the people. In some parts of France the very medical men must be consulted early in the day if they are to be found sober. — Church Quarterly Review.


"Thank God" for Faults!

Thank God we do not live with saints! We live with people full of faults, and it is excellent, for the faults of others serve us either by imposing a salutary constraint or by the lesson that they give. — Paris Figaro.

May Prosecute Itinerant Drug Dispenser

1914

Broadly speaking, no one who is not a registered pharmacist may sell drugs legally.

Under this provision of the code officers may prosecute the traveling man who is reported to be visiting this city twice a week to sell preparations containing morphine, cocaine or other habit-forming drugs to young men and boys, unless he is a registered pharmacist.

When poisons are sold they must be labeled.

Officers are doing all in their power to check the sale of various preparations called "snow" by the drug victims. Appeals of mothers whose boys are becoming physical wrecks have been made and it is the determination of all the officers to enforce strictly all laws, whether state or interstate, which prohibit the sale of opium, morphine and cocaine.

Many Hideous Wrecks

Police officers and other observant persons give graphic descriptions of the suffering of drug fiends. Many boys and young men are but shadows of their former selves, their bodies are covered with sores where the hypodermic needle has been injected, and they are losing their mental, moral and physical stamina. In many instances the needle wounds have become infected, but this fact does not deter the victims from injecting the morphine or cocaine into other parts of the body.

The craving for strong drink is nothing compared with the craving for drugs after the habit has once been formed, and the chances for cure are very slight.

Because of these deplorable facts — because of the widespread and growing use of drugs — the public is aroused. The people demand the strict enforcement of all present laws and, if they be inadequate, the passage of new provisions which will increase the difficulty of young men to procure the "snow."

—Waterloo Evening Courier, Waterloo, Iowa, Jan. 16, 1914, p. 3.

Morphiomania – An Addiction, Must Have Morphine or Opium

1878

Morphiomania

Morphiomania has become a great scourge in Berlin since the introduction of opium injections as a relief from bodily suffering and sleeplessness.

Tradespeople, merchants, judges, barristers, soldiers, students, doctors and clergymen become the victims of the habit, and when the medical attendants are called in it is too late to counteract the evil.

At first, these subcutaneous injections offer the quickest and easiest means to allay pain and bring rest to the sufferer. But to prove effectual in its cure, the treatment must be continued for a certain time; and during that period the patient becomes so accustomed to these skin injections that they become indispensable. When the medical practitioner refuses to increase the doses, the patient unable to sleep or rest without the calming injection, procures the necessary instruments and applies the remedy himself.

Sometimes, also, even after the patient has been cured without any undue doses, and when he should dispense with the opium injections, he delays doing so under the plea that they make sleep and rest so well. In fact, when once these subcutaneous injections have begun, they can rarely be left off. Like drink, the appetite for them increases until chronic drunkenness ensues.