Drugs At Washoe Lake!

The San Francisco Call, January 14, 1896

Carson Opium Smugglers

Officers Find Fifty Pounds of the Drug and a Counterfeit Mixture in a Cache

Carson, Nev. Jan. 13. United State District Attorney Jones to-day found fifty taels of opium buried in one of the stalls at the racetrack. Lee Brooks, who hid the drug there, recently left town and now is serving sentence in the Washoe County Jail for defrauding a Reno man out of $60.
A man named Jordan, who occupied a cell with Brooks in jail some time ago, was his confidante, and learned that Brooks had a quantity of opium buried in one of the stalls at the Carson racetrack.  Brooks wanted him, as soon as he was released from custody, to take the opium away so officers would not find it. Jordan, instead of doing as requested, immediately informed the Sheriff of Washoe County and he came over yesterday and told the United States District Attorney. Together they went to the track and found one case of opium, containing fifty boxes.
Some of it was a mixture of molasses, etc. with which Brooks and his partner, Harry Butts, are supposed to have duped unsuspecting Chinamen, presumably showing them good opium and then selling the mixture, which was similar to it in appearance. Three hundred pounds of the same mixture was recently found at Washoe Lake.

(editors note: a “tael” is a chinese unit of measurement, sometimes about 40 grams. Also, this article was transcribed exactly as it appeared in the paper.)