DocroRs attending an audience at the Vatican on Monday were urged to "speak out, speak out strongly. while there is still time. to avert the spread of social degeneration resulting from narcotics."
Pope Paul. speaking to delegates to an Italian national medical conference being held in Rome, added that it was. perhaps, already too late.
This was the second time in the course of a few weeks that he had appealed for help over the drugs problem. Last month he urged an international congress on toxology to do everything in its power to help curb the evil.
The problem also came under discussion during the Pope's meeting with President Nixon, according to a statement issued by the White House.
DEADLY CONTAGION "Give advice to we pastors of souls, to parents, teachers. sociologists and politicians . . about these mysterious drugs which are now spreading like a deadly contagion, aided by a clandestine and speculative trade.
"You must tell us what gives to these drugs their subtle and powerful attrac tion," he told the doctors, "and what biological and psychological effects are produced by their use."
"COMMON TASK" "the Church was ready to receive their teachings, Pope Paul said for doctors and priests had a common task to save people who had fallen prey to "the perfidious seduction" of narcotics.
Doctors. he said, might he able to make the lesson sink home where others had failed.
Modern man was more receptive to the ideas of physicians and scientists than to other teachers.