Kicking an opiate habit is a bitch. Before the advent of modern medical and pharmaceutical interventions, counseling, and peer support groups, the nationwide de facto withdrawal “treatment” for prisoners with addiction was the “iron cure.” The “iron cure,” also known as the “steel cure” or the “steel-and-concrete cure,” is defined in Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of the Underworld as, “A sudden forced abstinence.”i
More clearly, the addict is locked in a jail cell to undergo the painful withdrawal of opiates, with the body’s onslaught of physical pain, mental harrow, loss of appetite, excessive sweating, muscular aches, insomnia, gut-wrenching stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting, the torturous detoxification filling the cell block with constant moaning and the stench of malodors.
The “patient” received no medication to alleviate the physical torments, nor did the “cure,” also known as “cold turkey,” address the psychological perseveration about, and craving for, dope. During the age of the “iron cure” prison peer support amounted to collectively prioritizing the pursuit of narcotics in one’s jailhouse.
The Harrison Narcotic Act vs. El Paso
Just as the 1849 discovery of gold ignited the historic California gold rush, the March 1, 1915, enactment of the US Congress’ Harrison Narcotic Act, a sweeping reform which made it illegal to possess opiates or cocaine unless prescribed by a licensed physician and dispensed by a licensed pharmacist, incited an El Paso drug rush. In El Paso the precious deposit was affordable and accessible opiates that did not require a prescription, with the motherlode waiting in Juarez, Mexico, one quick streetcar ride or a short stroll across the wooden international bridge.
Overwhelmed with the surge of addicts migrating to El Paso the city, as stated by the heading of an El Paso Morning Times article, reacted defensively: “War on Dopesters Has Been Declared.”
The column summarized,
“Cut off from their ‘dope’ in other places, hordes of ‘dope’ fiends are daily arriving in El Paso, their objective point being Juarez, where the necessary ‘shot’ can be secured. City authorities are agreed that unless some action is taken to stem the tide of these poor unfortunates, El Paso will soon face an appalling condition. As it is the matter has grown too big for the city and has been taken up with government officials in the hope that the government can offer some solution to the problem.”
The reporting also drew attention to an often-overlooked strain on the city, “If the dope fiend would go to Juarez and take up his residence there conditions would not be so troublesome, but the majority of cases, prefers to live in El Paso. It is but a short trip over to Juarez, where after going and securing a quantity of the drug preferred they can return to their homes in [El Paso], lock the doors of their rooms and satiate themselves with the drug that is sapping their lives and vitality.”ii
Though most addicts in El Paso made relatively small purchases of narcotics, by the summer of 1915 the drug arrests in El Paso were continuous and the jail was swelling with locked up “dope fiends” who, sharing a sentiment with the city government, were acutely aware that their predicament was dire. Vanquished were the lenient days of 1911 when an prisoner in precarious shape might successfully plead, “Please, Cap, can’t I have just a little of that stuff?” and be instructed by the sergeant, “Come on in here, I’ll give you a little” allowing the ill prisoner to take a spoon, a bit of cotton, “a dose of [his confiscated] ‘stuff’, iii heat his drug in a spoon over a flame and inject the “fix” into his arm to relieve his dope cravings.
One early Harrison Act arrestee sought to resolve his plight for a “shot” by substituting the derivative of an over-the-counter drug to relieve his hop craving. Distraught, he scratched into his arm with a pin and applied tobacco to the gash; the consequence was equally extreme, the prisoner died from lockjaw.iv
“Desperate men do desperate things,” — Jimmy LaFave, singer/ songwriter.
Jail provides ample free time for a person to contemplate their situation; for prisoners with addictions the focus was scoring a “fix”. By early summer 1915 one anonymous inmate found his eureka moment.
Prisoner John Doe surmised that when wrists are lacerated the necessary stitching of the wound would cause excruciating pain with the attending physician being obligated to administer an opiate “shot”. Desperate enough to commit to his revelation, he scrounged up a piece of tin, slashed his wrist with a sharpened edge, and began howling with pain. A jailer heard his wailing, and half lugged the self-appointed guinea pig to the police department’s emergency room (at the time the El Paso Police Department headquarters housed an ER staffed with a surgeon).
The “suicide” ruse was an unmitigated success; the sutured patient triumphantly returned to his unit dopey eyed and smiling. To express from their perspective the admiration and respect for ingenuity in the face of adversity the visionary’s cellmates conferred upon him the honorific “the genius”.v
Foolishly, but not surprising, the genius’ peers perceived him as a role-model. By July 6, 1915, seven prisoners had cut or slashed their wrists, on August 11th two additional inmates cut the radial arteries of their left wrists,vi by mid-August ten had exploited of the ploy. The eleventh and twelfth prisoners to self-mutilate probably walked smugly into their painful surprise.
The gambit had been played out; each bleeding man was held down, with no narcotic to numb the pain while the surgeon stitched their wounds. After guards had escorted the pair back to lockup one of the conspirators vented wryly to his sympathetic cellmates, “It just shows that a cop ain’t got no heart when it comes to giving the dope.”vii
The perpetual cycle of prisoners’ pursuits for narcotics and their jailers’ interceptions grinds on.
i Eric Partridge, A DICTIONARY OF THE UNDERWORLD, New York: Bonanza Books, 1961, p. 684.
ii “WAR ON DOPESTERS HAS BEEN DECLARED,” El Paso Morning Times, August 11, 1915, p. 3.
iii “PLAINTIVE PLEA OF A DOPE FIEND,” El Paso Herald, April 10, 1911, p. 9.
iv “SLASH WRISTS TO GET THEIR DOPE,” El Paso Morning Times, August 15, 1915, p. 11.
v Ibid.
vi “Jail Inmate Tries Suicide,” El Paso Morning Times, July 6, 1915, p. 2; “Prisoner Cut Wrist,” El Paso Morning Times, July 6, 1915, p. 12; “Cut Arteries in Wrist,” El Paso Morning Times, August 12, 1915, p. 9.
vii El Paso Morning Times, August 15, 1915.