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TBe
Brltlsl)
Journal
of
Inebriety
(RlcoBollsm
and
Drug
kddlctlon)
~~
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-
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VOL.
XXXI.
No.
I.
JULY,
1933
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SOME
UNUSUAL
FORMS
OF
DRUG
ADDICTION*
E.
w.
DAMS,
O.B.E.,
M.D.
THERE
re always among
us
a
certain number of persons who aretoo poor
to
pay for life. For these three courses are open
:
Theymay borrow-that is, they may draw upon the resources of indi-viduals more vitally endowed than themselves; they may acknow-ledge themselves paupers and accept the free lodgment of death;or they may use a kind of default and seek means to make realityless real. It is to this last class that our alcoholics and drug addictsbelong.We may also view the matter from
a
slightly different, thoughrelated, angle. Carlyle was once told of a Boston lady who waskind enough to encourage the Creator by stating that she
“
accepted the Universe.” Carlyle’s reply was
:
“
She’d better
!
”
Well, the average drug addict does not accept the Universe. Heis on the run from reality. He is a person who, could he havebeen asked beforehand whether he was willing to be a candidatefor life with all its responsibilities and duties, would have repliedin the phrase of Calvin Coolidge
:
“
I
do not choose to run.’’ It
is
true, indeed, that in a certain sense and in the case of certainrare souls, a non-acceptance
of
the temporal Universe may be farfrom an ignoble thing. When a Plato, for example, makes thedenial, he constructs for himself a realm
of
eternal values;
a
Paulescapes by the gates
of
the Kingdom of Heaven; the artist by themight of his mind remoulds the pattern of things nearer his heart’sdesire. But
in
such instances there is no real flight; there is,on the contrary,
a
valiant adventure in search
of
a reality more
*
A
Paper
read before the Society
for
the Study
of
Inebriety at the
Spring
Meeting
of
the Society, held
in
the
rooms
of
the Medical Societyof London,
11,
Chandos Street, Cavendish Square,
W.
I,
on
Tuesday,
April
11,
1933,
Lady Barrett,
C.H.,
C.B.E.,
hf.D.,
M.S.,
in
the Chair.
2
The
British
Journal
of
Inebriety
real than the one by which the individual finds himself circum-scribed. The drug addict, on the other hand, is not valiant; hecan neither accept this robust Universe nor escape from it by anascent to rarer regions.He searches, as
I
have said,
for
means to make reality less real,and in this search he sometimes displays great ingenuity both asregards the agents he selects and in respect of his method of usingthem.
I
propose this afternoon to describe some of the more un-usual forms of addiction which have been described in the litera-ture of the subject, but,
as
we have not an unlimited amount oftime and the subject is rich,
I
shall have to omit altogether anydescription of the vagaries
of
alcoholics and
I
must also neglectthe wide field presented by the barbituric group of drugs. Myremarks will, therefore, be mainly restricted to the vegetable addic-tion drugs, though a few instances will be culled from the non-vegetable group. Our study falls naturally into
two
main divi-sions:
(I)
The employment of unusual methods, and
(2)
thechoice of unusual substances.
Curiozcs
Forms
of
Addiction
to
Indian
Hem$
One
of
the earliest addiction drugs was
Cannabis,
and, indeed,the discovery of its inebriant properties is hidden in the uncer-tainties of pre-history. Yet we know that, unlike opium, its abusepreceded by ages its legitimate use. Some think that the
“
sorroweasing drug,” the
4a’ppaKov
v~ncvO+s
f Homer, was
Cannabis
(I),
but it is far more likely to have been some early form of opium.However, there
is
an undoubted reference to
it
in the fourth bookof Herodotus
(z),
and the reference is interesting because of themanner in which thedrugwas employed. The passage,
as
givenin Rawlinson’s translation, reads as follows
:
“
The Scythians, as
I
said, take some of this hemp seed and, creeping under the feltcoverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately itsmokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bathcan exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy, and the vapourserves
them
instead of a water-bath; for they never by any chancewash their bodies with water.”
I
am not sufficient of
a
pharma-cologist to know whether the mere fumes of hemp seed can causeintoxication or whether our author is indulging in one of his tallstories, but an apparent confirmation is to be found in Burton’sbook
(3).He
states that, according to his information, theSiberians intoxicate themselves by inhaling the vapour
of
theseed thrown upon red-hot stones. This, however, bears
200
great
The
British
Journal
of
Inebriety
3
a
resemblance to the passage from Herodotus to be accepted
as
independent testimony, and
I
suspect that this passage was sub-consciously or unconsciously running through Burton’s mind.Siberians and Scythians are not very unlike in sound.It is interesting to note that Lewin, in
his
“
Phantastica
”
(4),
derives
KdvvaPLs
from
Ko’vapos,
“
noise,” and he supposes that thename originates from the noisy fashion in which the devotees ofhemp were said to express their feelings.
I
do not know whatthe etymologists have to say to this, and perhaps
our
author ismore to be trusted in his description of the curious method usedby the Zulu Kafis when indulging in the drug. It appears thatth’ese people place some burning manure on top of
a
handful
of
hashish,
and, having covered up all with a small mound of
earth,
they dig air holes in the heap with their fingers. Each man thenlies down in turn and inhales the smoke through these vents.After a few whiffs they retain the vapour in their respiratory organsfor a while with the object of inducing
a
violent attack
of
cough-ing and expectoration. It is evident that they like their dope fullflavoured and take their pleasures as sadly
as
an Englishman
is
reputed to take his!Sometimes, as in
Tunis,
the hemp
is
chewed
(5).
6L
Muggles
9’
Indian
hemp
was at one time thought to be
a
distinct species
of
hemp, but
in
1712
he German traveller Englebert Kaempfer, in his
“
Amoenitates Exoticae
”
(6),
made the suggestion that the Euro-pean and
Asian
hemp plants were identical save for certain pecu-liarities developed by soil and climate, and
I
believe
it
correct
to
say
that this suggestion is now very generally accepted by botan-ists. Given favourable conditions, hemp may thus become Indianhemp anywhere,
as
certain districts in the
U.S.A.
have found totheir cost. For example, these conditions are found
in
the regionround
about
New Orleans, and there the herb
grows
plentifullyand
is
cultivated
in
the backyards of the houses. Locally theplant
is
ktlown
as
mariahuana,
or, more commonly,
as
muggles.
According to
a
recent paper by Fossier in
a
New Orleans medicaljournal
(7),
its abuse has lately
so
increased as to become
a
veritable menace, and even school children have been detectedsmoking
muggles.
A
recent survey of
450
prisoners in the parishprison of New Orleans showed that
125
of them were confirmed
mariahaw
addicts.
As
a means
of
combating the evil,
Fossier
urges that the USA. should follow the British lead and include
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