Every country had made one or more attempt to stop drug abuse. In England, King James launched his famous " Counterblaste " against tobacco use. In Turkey, where men and women are alike slaves to its fascination, tobacco was originally forbidden under severe penalties; even death. This is not different from the efforts of the government of other countries. Yet youths seems to ignore the inpending dangers.
I am not going to quarrel with the use of tobacco in general by mature men. He is free to decide for himself whether he shall force a poison on his revolting stomach; for the nausea that follows the first use of tobacco is the stomach's attempt to eject the poison which has been absorbed. What I desire is to warn the growing youth, of the baneful influence of drugs on minds and bodies yet in the process of development.
The dangers of drug abuse to the youth lies first in the fact that it poisons the body. That it does not kill at the outset is due to the fact that the dose is small but the body gradually accumulates the poison. Overtime, there is a slow but steady process of physical degeneration; digestion is affected, the heart is overtaxed, liver and bowels are deranged in their functions, and as the poison spreads throughout the system, there is a gradual physical deterioration.
Dr. J. J. Kellogg in his experiment, obtained the content of a cigarette, making a solution of it. injected half the quantity into a frog, with the effect that the frog died almost instantly. The rest was administered to another frog with like effect. Both frogs were full grown, and of average size. The conclusion was evident that a single cigarette contains poison enough to kill two frogs. A boy who smokes twenty cigarettes a day has inhaled enough poison to kill forty frogs. He does not die immediately but he is likely to die sooner or later of weak heart, Bright's disease, or some other malady which scientific physicians everywhere now recognize as a natural result of chronic nicotine poisoning.".
