It appears that drug addiction is nothing new, as can be seen by the following news item in the January 8, 1915 Van Buren Press Argus newspaper of Crawford County, Arkansas: DR SKELTON’S CONDITION STARTS INVESTIGATION The mental condition of Dr. W W Skelton of Fort Smith has developed one of the saddest cases resulting from the drug habit ever reported and will probably result in the prosecution of one or more of Fort Smith’s druggists who supply the unfortunate victims of morphine and cocaine habits with the drug that wrecks them mentally and physically. It is now believed that the entire family had become addicted to the drug habit and that the accidental shooting of the nine year old son and death of their two weeks old babe was due to the use of the drug. The members of one drug firm have been placed under arrest and their hearing will probably throw a new light upon the use and sale of morphine in Fort Smith, for their use has been almost as wide spread among a certain class in Fort Smith, as that of whiskey. Fran Alverson Warren e-mail: alverson@valuelinx.net 479-369-2703 http://www.crawfordcountyarkansas.net/