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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1963)
s i f 1 1 $ 12 A Narcotics Part II! WEDNESDAY. MAY I. 1963 MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD, OREGON Odds Heavily Against Drug Addict Being Cured at Treatment Center : Ey HARRY FERGUSON Waahington-flJPD - Curing a person of the drug habit U one of the supreme challenges to medical science. A study of 1,900 persons released after treatment at the Public Health Service Hospital at Lexington, Ky., showed that 90 per cent of them went back on drugs again and us ually within six months. There are two ways In which an addict can get the treatment at Lexington and the other federal hospital at Fort Worth, Tex. If he has been convicted of a federal offense, the Judge can order him to take the cure. Or he can enter the hospitals volun tarily, ' provided beds are available, and If he is able pay he is charged $9.50 a day Fans Heavy Odds Righ from the start the odds are heavily against him being cured. More than one third of the voluntary patient can't take it, and leave with' in two weeks. The prisoners, of course, are forced to re main. By the end of the first month one-half of the volun tary patients have given up and departed. Fewer than one third of them stay long as the doctors consider necessary. Then one out ten succeeds in freeing him self of drugs. Treatment consists of LIFE GOES ON-A woman hides her face from the camera as she rides to market on a burro In Port au Prince, Haiti. Haitian President Francois Duvalier, facing internal oppo sition and a threatened invasion from the. neighboring Do minican Republic, has vowed to resist all attempts to force him out of office.- (UP1) gradual withdrawal of drugs by giving the patient decreas ing doses. Up until 1945 the patients were given injections of morphine. They called this "going to the shooting gal lery." Sometime during World War II a synthetic drug called methodone was developed in Germany. -It bears only a slight chemical relations to morphine or heroin and is now used in the publl:; health hospitals. Now the patients say they are going lo me cocktail lounge," meaning they are going to drink small glass of reddish-colored methadone. For a person lightly addict ed the withdrawal period can be over In four days, but the heavy addict needs between 10 and 12 days. Either way, the patient is deathly 111 be cause all metnaaone aocs is flatten out the peaks of pain In an attempt to make life endurable. After complete withdrawal of drugs there is a convales cence period of two weeks. The patient begins to nave an appetite and gains strength, but he will be resuess ana irritable for several months. Then the treatment shifts from the body to the mind. A narcotics addict usually Is listless and indifferent to everything except where he is going to get his next shot. At the Lexington hospital an attempt is made to get him interested in something- soft bail, boxing, watching television, bowling, going to the movies, playing in an or chestra, theatricals, or writing for the hospital newspaper called "The Blue Grass Times." . The doctor would like the oatient to remain in this drug-free environment for at least five months. Then he is on his own. Against all the odds, some persons , are cured. One of them founded Narcotics Anon ymous after he had been to Lexington eight times. Anoth er one is now a public of ficial in his home town. And there is one man who owns small business on the West Coast and telephones Lexing ton every Christmas Eve to express his thanks. Bad as the narcotics prob lem is in the United States today, there was a time when threatened to engulf the nation. Around 1913-14 one American out of every 400 was an addict of some kind. Chinese imported Into the West Coast as laborers brought their opium pipes along, and the habit spread eastward across the nation. Opium was given to Civil LAST 3 DAYS TO SAVE! sale of the season STOCK AWAY BEAUTIFUL AT BIG SAVINGS NOW! , mi rMt rag. 1.65 rtg. 1.S0 STOCKINGS 1 .39 4.05 U9 3.75 box box War wounded to case their pain, and hundreds of thou sands of addicts were created on the battle fields. There was no law against any opiate drug in the United States, and thousands of per sons became addicts by taking patent medicines heavily load ed with opium, The invention of the hypodermic needle in 1853 made it easy to shoot narcotics straight into the blood stream. Then occurred a tragic med ical mistake. In 1898 the Ger mans began the commercial production of heroin, which is an opium derivative, and it was nailed as a miracle drug and recommended as a cure for persons addicted to opium and morphine. Actually hero in i three times as powerful as morphine. For five years heroin was pumped into per sons seeking a cure for drug addiction before an article ap pearing in the Alabama Med ical Journal in 1903 chal lenged the theory that heroin was a cure. By 1914 the devil was loose all across the United States and the underworld had dis covered there was a big bus iness in selling adulterated heroin. The result was the first action on the part of the federal government-the pas sage of the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1914. It allows the fed eral government to license drugs for medical purposes and to war against the illegal transportation and sale of nar cotics. Under a Supreme Court de cision of last year addiction itself is not a crime. Posses sion of narcotics Is punishable by imprisonment for from two to 10 years for a first offend er. Five years is the manda tory minimum sentence for selling drugs. For subsequent offenses prison sentences range up to 40 years and a person who sells to anybody under 18 years of age can get the death penalty at the dis cretion of the Jury. The result is that addiction is on the decline In the United States, but a new peril has risen and the Federal Narcot ics Bureau is helpless to do anything about it. .. (Nexti Goof balls, bennies and the doctors' dilemma.) Brookings Rainfall Tapers To Trickle '; Brookings, Ore.-(UPD-Brook-ings, which had more than 10 inches of rain in the 48 hours up to 4 a.m. Tuesday, had only .02 of an Inch in the 24-hour period following that. "OIL TO BURN" Mobilhul ' S 4 H Green Stamps MEDFORD FUEL CO. 772-2111 . 14 N. CENTRAL 773-7484 r& jfi ii -:- s,h m i i Arpege For Mother by Lanvin The world's most famous fragrance in a magnificent mist! 2-oz. Size Arpege 6.00 p.t. My Sin & Scandal S.00 p.t. street floor A Hist Print Blouses 1 You give Mother easy living when you give her Arnel "ease of care" fabrics. 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