Salt Lake Tribune | 1912-08-04 | Page 13 | France Awakens to Menace of Absinthe

FRANCE AWAKENS 10 iElCEJFABME Government Wipes Out Opium Dens; Now Turns to Graver Danger. Special Cable to The Trlbrma. PARIS, Aug. 8. Having succeeded within an almost Incredibly short time In wiping out thousands of opium dens at Marseilles, Toulon and Paris, the government Is now turning Its attention toward measures that will diminish the rapidly Increasing consumption of absinthe, ab-sinthe, which forms one of the greatest dangers to tha French nation. During last yoar alone the consumption consump-tion made an enormous and quite unprecedented un-precedented leap of over one million Halloas, and a commission appointed to study Its effects entirely confirmed tho lndlctmont of tho National Learrue Against Alcoholism that "absinthe Is the source of madness and crime. It causes epilepsy and consumption; tt makes thu husband a brute, tho wife a martyr and the child a degenerate." All the saint), there are difficulties In the way of the supresslon of trade In absinthe. Tho manufacturers are a powerful corporation, and the state receives re-ceives from the saJ$ of this drink $10. -000,000 a year and the communes a little less than $5,000,000. For theso reasons the govarnment has abandoned the idea of a complete Interdiction of the sale of ahslnthX It has been discovered that the principal prin-cipal poison in absinthe Is a vegetable stibstance, thylori. so that the suggestion Is that distillers should havB the right to produce a liquid and labul It absinthe, If need be. so long as It be free of this pernicious lngrerfiont. The absinthe manufacturers profess thomselvea entirely entire-ly satisfied with this oomproml6o, a fact In ltaalf suspicious.