Increasing Drug Addiction

◆ Until recently heroin addicts in the United States were estimated to number about 300,000. Now the unofficial estimate is about 650,000, with 300,000 addicts living in New York city. The average age of drug addicts receiving treatment in this city during the early 1960’s was 25. The age dropped to 21 four years ago. Now the average age is 17. Approximately 25 percent of the addicts receiving treatment in New York are under 15. A spokesman at the Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn observed: “In a family, [heroin addiction] is very contagious. We’re seeing third- and fourth-generation addicts now.”

Methadone Babies

◆ Some cities have programs where heroin addicts are issued methadone, an inexpensive synthetic narcotic, as one step in their treatment. It has long been known that babies born to female heroin addicts are often found addicted to heroin and undergo withdrawal symptoms. Until recently it was not thought that there was any danger in the case of newborn babies whose mothers had been taking methadone. But now it has been learned that about two thirds of the babies born to methadone mothers have withdrawal symptoms, which include irritability, poor sleeping habits, sucking with great anxiety, scratching their faces and not eating well. A doctor in Washington, D.C., said of their crying: “It is a piercing, high-pitched cry as if the baby is in pain. They are suffering.” What a high price is paid by these innocent victims of adult foolishness.