Narcotic Optimism

"We are here to deal with a comparatively new vice," said Senator Louis de Brouckere of Belgium, opening as President last week the League of Nations Conference for Limitation of the Manufacture of Narcotic Drugs. "Happily," continued President de Brouckere, "addiction to narcotic drugs has not yet contaminated the masses in most countries or gained large political significance."

Such narcotic optimism infuriates many people, particularly William Randolph Hearst whose newspapers are the only chain in the U. S. to crusade endlessly against "dope." Up to last week the many antinarcotic sessions at Geneva have all proved abortive. No sooner had the latest League Conference met than its delegates fell to quarreling, failed to approach agreement on any of the oft-proposed, oft-rejected world narcotic limitation plans.

Small Switzerland, where the Conference met, is one of the world's largest manufacturers of narcotics, with Turkey a potent rival. Opium poppies are raised without limit in China and Persia, a fact which sorely vexes Indian poppy growers who are now forced by the British Government to cut down their acreage 10% each year. U. S. experts boast that U. S.-manufactured narcotics are found in only 1% of U. S. raids, almost never found in raids abroad. These facts, the U.S. delegation will argue at Geneva, suggest that U. S. methods of supervising and limiting the manufacture of narcotics are efficient, should be generally adopted. As everyone knows, neither the U. S. nor any other nation has ever been able to crush smuggling of narcotics once they have been manufactured.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.