Drugs can be secured in Durham much easier than in other places. This statement has been made by drug addicts to the chief of police of this city when questioned by thim, according to a statement made by Chief Doby in his annual report of the police department. Prostitutes say that Durham offers easy money for the conduct of their nefarious traffic, the report also states.
For some time the police of this city, as well as in other cities of the land, have been confronted with the serious problem regarding the drug addicts and prostitutes. Reports from all sections of the country, as shown in newspaper accounts and in resolutions adopted by various national organizations, show that the two evils are increasing in the United States at an alarming rate. While the conditions are bad in Durham it is not believed that they are of such an alarming nature as those reported in various other sections of the country. Discounting the section of the country in which Durham is located, where the population is declared to be among the best to be found anywhere in the country and where the conditions are supposed to be better than in other sections, the two evils are of sufficient magnitude to cause the officials much concern.
Durham offers a good field for the prostitutes, according to the chief, because of the presence of hundreds of young men who attend the institutions of higher education in and around the city. The police department is fighting the evil with an eye being constantly kept on the transient undesirables of this class, but they present a difficult problem, it is declared. This form of moral leper keeps apace with the times. Today they ride around in good automobiles, they pick up their victims and carry them beyond the confines of the city and beyond the jurisdiction of the police department for their immoral practice. The county officials have cooperated with the police department admirably in fighting this evil and the chief of police is loud in his praise of the assistance rendered but despite their activity the traffic continues. As fast as some of the prostitutes are taken up by the officers and driven from town by the recorder’s court, others come in, making it necessary for the authorities to continue their activities continually. “As a rule there is a man traveling with the prostitute or somewhere nearby,” the report goes on to say. “Many of them are actually married and carry marriage certificates with them as a protection against the white slave law. As long as all goes well with them, they seldom resort to serious crime, but if business goes bad and money runs short, they will commit any crime imaginable to get the dope. (The majority of the prostitutes are said to be victims of the drug habit.)”
Many calls for dope are made to local physicians every month by men and women who must have the drugs to keep alive. some of those people arrested and placed in jail to await trial for various offenses against the laws of the state and nation, deprived of their necessary dope, have become almost raving maniacs in their cells so bad did their abused natures cry out for the soothing drug. The writer was present in the health department office some months ago when two men upon whom the drug habit had laid its destructive hand, leaving traces of its work seen in the change of the pupils of their eyes and in other ways upon their faces and physical beings, applied for the amount of dope they were permitted to get under the law. Investigation in the safe revealed lack of drug in any appreciable quantity and when they were acquainted with the fact that the amount on had would have to be divided among them, terror showed in their eyes and for a moment or so it appeared that they would grab the bottle from the hands of the health department employee. Local physicians could tell similar stories of their experience. Transient dope fiends are continually visiting the city where they attempt to secure drugs. Some of them tell pitiful tales of how they became drug addicts and cry for the dope that is life itself to them. All of them have the unmistakable sign of the “dopester” upon them.
Many of the crimes committed in Durham are attributed to people who are addicts of the drug habit, it is claimed by the police. There is apparently no limit but what these unfortunates will go to secure the drug. Failure to get it breeds crime. Just what will be done by the local authorities to carry on the fight against the two evils named is not known. The situation is such as to claim the constant attention and surveillance of the police, although it is not believed to be so serious as in other sections.
From page 2 of the Durham Morning Herald, Monday, July 28, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn84020730/1924-07-28/ed-1/seq-2/
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