17. KICKING THE GONG AROUND
It may be news that widespread addiction to narcotics is a comparatively recent American manifestation. Long after the turn of the century, a few trickles supplied pig-tailed Chinamen, despondent prostitutes, ex-cons who had picked up the habit in stir and a few rich fools who would try anything for a bang. Juvenile use was unheard of. Marijuana was unknown outside pad-parties in the Harlem jungles and among a thin fringe of Mexicans. The Harrison Narcotics Law, first federal recognition of the existence of such an evil, is only 35 years old.
We are solemnly convinced that the great growth of this plague in the past 20 years has been parallel to the spread of Communism in our country. And it has not been confined to our country.
Estimates by the Narcotic Control Section of the United Nations, that one of every ten people on earth uses habit-forming drugs in some manner or form, are borne out in this country, where the evil is prevalent in all sections. It is the greatest tangible menace facing us. And dope addiction, on the rise, can be traced definitely to Soviet Russia.
It has long been a tactic of nations bound on enslaving others to deaden the ambitions and energies of their victims with dope.
Examples of this stretch back to the dawn of written history. In the last century, British imperialists introduced the habit into China to control that nation. Nazi Germany flooded Poland and Czechoslovakia. Japan built huge narcotics factories in Manchuria to weaken the Chinese opposition. Russia is doing more of it now. Raw stuff pours in from Mediterranean ports. It originates in lands behind the Iron Curtain. Its importation into the United States serves Russia twofold—prostrates a prospective enemy and gets its hands on needed American exchange to be used for propaganda purposes and payment of undercover agents here. International bank drafts could be traced.
One courier can carry $1,000,000 worth of uncut dope on his person.