Are Drugs The Answer

are drugs the answer will they turn you on or will they turn on you were you taking drug or was anyone taking drugs in the junior high like 6 8 years ago well that's changed it's true mostly at first it was a college kind of thing and then in the last oh four 3 years we've been seeing most drug use in high schools and now it's getting down to Junior High School level the same way I hear college students now saying my gosh you know my little brothers and sisters are way ahead of where we were it's it's almost like the younger and younger people are becoming more and more aware on the other hand some of the really young kids are popping anything they you give them a pillow drop it I mean almost insane his name is Dr Alan Cohen he is a psychologist but what's more important he knows about drugs firsthand because he was one of Timothy L's original disciples he lived the Psychedelic life for about 3 years before he decided drugs are not the answer drugs he decided did not promote peace love and human understanding now he often discusses the whole drug scene with groups of Junior and senior high school students this is one one of those discussions uh I'm speaking kind of from a funny position as a psycholog and instructed by Timothy liry and others we took some field trips that year which were a lot different than any trips we' taken before uh so I stayed with the scene for about 3 years took lots of drugs sampled this and that thought it was a good thing for a while and then later kind of saw through it I think now you know a lot of adults are very upset about the whole drug thing and they don't understand why kids are turning on if they just look at say TV for a while at the media they're getting this message over and over again something wrong with you turn on headache perhaps don't worry thousands of things too much acid in your stomach no problem constipated don't worry right God forbid you should get nervous even we have things for that all over the counter if you're really uptight uh you can probably get a prescription for something and the thing is I don't think adults realize that uh not all kids who experiment with with some kind of dope are fiends degenerates you know immediate criminals weirdos they're not my kids who could possibly be experimenting and you hear things like mothers on the phone saying I've just found out that my kids using marijuana quickly the tranquilizers you know uh so this this hypocrisy around people in my experience use drugs to feel better it's a lot of other motives going on for kicks sure out of rebellion sure curiosity yeah social pressure there's that seeking Insight uh-huh for no reason at all yeah but underneath it when people get high it means that they're not feeling so high ordinarily the question is is the kind of high that you can get with the kind of drugs that are being used now worth it now I want to talk a little bit about three main categories of drugs uh speed uh the strong psychedelic and good old marijuana right all of which are fairly controversial now speed not so much speed stimulants to the nervous system uh they're taken by dropping them by capsules or pills and occasionally people shoot it with a needle very powerful stuff what it does is excit your nervous system can get you into a state of euphoria and a lot of energy for a while but it also takes a great toll on your brain if you use it long enough on your liver and especially on on your head uh over a long period of time you lose your appetite you don't sleep so much you begin to get paranoid that means very suspicious and distrustful uh so that actually in the long run things like like speed much more dangerous than heroin because the body builds up a talent and you have to take more and more to get the same effect and the higher you go the harder you crash the harder you come down and it's this period of depression and feeling of great uh Loess that is so bad with speed because you got to turn on again and again they say speed kills now the hip culture is beginning to learn this and it isn't so hip anymore to use Speedy now with psychedelics more controversial yes LSD DMT psilocybin masculine peyote they come up with a new name of their PCP MDA another year they'll be all kinds of names they do something strange they do something to your Consciousness which isn't done by the hard narcotics which put you dead asleep the barbituates which also turns you off uh the stimulants changes mood and Consciousness Alters it it's awfully unpredictable and sooner or later at least in my experience I know a lot of people sooner or later if you don't stop in time you flip out permanently you blow your mind you don't know when but sooner or later it happens now they've begin to found some things about the psychedelics about their effects on chromosomes we don't know all about that yet but there seems to be an effect on all these drugs on either the genetic material in your chromosomes or some kinds of factors which can influence perhaps unborn children there's no question that if you have a pregnant rat at home should keep her away from LSD so there's obviously caution on the physical level you get around to U pot marijuana that's really controversial on the one hand you have people saying I know what it is it's that Dopey narcotic anybody who takes that should be put in jail forever they're just deviates uh on the other hand you got people saying man grass is really groovy I mean uh not only should be legalized but uh should turn on everybody little kids make a better world and they're going back and forth and these people don't talk to each other the laws turn out to be very severe perhaps unfair and perhaps a a legal approach to using drugs is not as good as a public health approach I'm not talking about sale or manufacturer in terms of my own experience I think the most important thing was that they finally found the active ingredient you say you didn't think it had an active ingredient well if anisin can or some other kind of aspirin why not why not pot it's a drug called Delta 9 trans tetrah hydroc canaban right I get away with calling it THC and it turns out to be psychedelic drug not a narcotic not a stimulant not a depressant a psychedelic question is does it accumulate do all the physical effects add up if you've had 10 joints a week is that 10 joints worth of THC or eight or five we don't know a lot of these things but there's no reason certainly to think that that grass is harmless I mean there are a lot of things I worked for two years at the Counseling Center at Berkeley saw a lot of kids uh using pot and I didn't see any side effects but then I didn't look for them after I found out about the research I went back and saw that a lot of the things I would have suspected from long-term use of LSD and small doses occurred also with grass some of them a decrease in memory concentration of ility increased passivity or feeling like doing nothing creeping paranoia difficulty of translating thought into words uh getting hung up with other people distrusting uh and denying that drugs could ever be harmful and the thing is with grass it's so subtle it's so dangerous because you never look for the side effect it's Sneaky it's a sneaky drug all the psychedelics are sneaky so there's a question of of watching out to see if if you're getting too far all these drugs make you dependent they make you a slave freedom is inside you go up you come down you never get to keep what you have it's like being asleep and experiencing that you're waking up yes uh could there be some kind of a physical addict to marijuana well there doesn't seem to be a physical addiction to to pot in the sense that the body craves it has to have it to get straight like for example is true with Heroin the narcotics with strong barbituate use or even strong methine use now whether it's habit forming is a tricky issue it probably is although the pothead will tell you I can stop anytime I want I just don't want to I remember a kid coming up to me and getting very angry and saying look I know that pot's not habit forming and I should know I'm an expert I've turned on every day for 3 years it's a tricky issue it's easier to give up smoking pot than for most adults to give up smoking cigarettes but you can get dependent on it I think does it change the user's personality does pot change the user's personality it can again it varies that if you smoke one cigarette a year you don't look for smashing personality changes although people have flipped out on one marijuana trip if they're very sensitive gradually if you you use a lot there is kind of a a change of disintegration in personality people aren't as interested they get more egoistic uh they feel that they know it all they're not likely to to be very tolerant towards people who don't turn on uh they go into a kind of a fantasy thing sometimes and they don't feel that they can act on the world effectively yes sometimes there is a change again though it it does vary with dosage and use and who you are how can you reach a person who just doesn't want to listen well you have to try you have to communicate and you also have to try to figure out if you're concerned about them is why they're turning on in the first place what is it that makes it so difficult for them to listen you know are they missing somebody that's to be close to them are are they missing friends in other words try to find out what it is and then try to work on that sometimes you just have to be very patient and very honest and just lay it on the line and point out the kinds of things that might be happening changes that you might see now it sinks in sooner or later I mean underneath everybody who's turning on everything knows that it's a bad scene on some level I used to rationalize like crazy I used to make all kinds of excuses but you know basically your intuition knows that it's not going to work for you and that's on your side if you're trying to communicate to somebody about the use of drugs drugs yes um do you think that the use of drugs nowadays is more or less bad or do you think it's really a change in the way people are thinking well I can't help but think it's it's a change because you know all these drugs were around before there were fads in in all of these kinds of materials it seems to me that the level of awareness of teenagers is so high today the level of dissatisfaction is so high and the need to try to do some changing in terms of ones self for in society so I think that you see drugs are not the problem life is the problem you solve the problem of life you don't have to worry about taking drugs and it seems to me that we're we're a critical time and people are searching for Meaningful answers we've taught them that drugs are one way but it turns out not to be yes do you feel that the the marijuana should be legalized well the legalization problem is very difficult uh clearly from what we know about the active ingredient pot it would be insane to legalize it in the sense of now go to your five and diam store and pick up some pot because there's a very powerful chemical in it on the other hand I think we should be thinking about dealing with drug use in the same way that we deal with alcoholism as a health problem I'm not in favor I don't see it doing any good for young kids to go to jail just because they've been experimenting with a drug I feel strongly the people who are pushing it and dealing it and Manufacturing it and making money from from it should be for their own sakes uh criminally prosecuted so I hope that we get to the position where possessing drugs is not necessarily enough to get you put away for life but where people realize that perhaps maybe they don't want to go that road I think that's where we're going to have to go education outside well I know a lot of kids who do take drugs figure that it's their own life they're harming what do you feel about what do you think about this well that's that old point that you know you care about what I do to my life as long as I don't hurt you well people can argue back that people who get strung out on drugs and are stoned all the time don't help Society much if they happen to be dumb enough to be stoned while they're driving a car there could be a problem but again the question to the person is not whether or not Society has a right to determine whether or not they should use drugs but really what's happening to them suicide is a bad trip it also turns out to be against the LA for whatever that that means and to me the critical issue with one's friends is pointing out to them again sure you have the right to do anything to yourself and destroy yourself but wouldn't it be groovier not to wouldn't it be groovier to make it the place where you're happy um why do so many kids say that um that pod and L is less harmful than alcohol or pot mostly is less harmful than alcohol if you know so many doctors are saying that it really is more dangerous it's like comparing apples to pears that's the problem the drugs do different things alcohol is a depressant kind of knocks you out it's a turnoff drug and pot and LSD do something else to Consciousness now obviously if you uh guzzle a a quart of gin every day like can compare that with smoking some lowgrade Nebraska pot once a year you've got a good point that alcohol is more more dangerous on the other hand and if you're turning on a lot of hashish or maybe even taking LSD once it could be a lot more dangerous than than having a couple of of cocktails or a little bit of wine again abuse of any drug doesn't make sense yes uh where do these drugs come from are they pure very interesting question uh most of the drugs on the market are not manufactured by drug companies they're made uh most of the marijuana comes from out of the country uh one of the same with the LSD is manufactured in Labs one of the big problems for any of the drug users the stuff is so so terribly impure uh particularly the psychedelics the Black Market has very low quality control it's much more difficult to make it pure than you think and also the most important thing they don't care how impure they make it because you can't tell the difference uh hallucination on fake acid sometimes they put badana throwing a little uh speed or mescaline and then throw some strick nine which is a deadly poison you can get high off of that too you can drop dead also but you won't be able to tell a difference and you can't go back to your dealer and complain because he's going to say well a trip depends on what you're thinking the set and setting so that's why they can be so um terribly careless about it because you're not going to be able to tell the difference and it is a big problem see uh yes he said there was no way to tell if a psychedelic was pure but how about May well that's a funny question I remember once turning on a very old pothead in terms of his experience and I told him it was the best grass he'd ever get straight from Central America he was so stoned after one puff he was wobbling around he he started hallucinating I was roaring hysterically because he was smoking tea you know like from the kitchen uh a lot of it is psychological so that it can be marijuana can be cut with almost anything and if you think you're getting high you usually are yes I'd like to know what made you change your mind from taking drugs then how did I quit well I found out that that in fact the drugs didn't work I was lucky cuz I got out before at least the final thing blew in my mind I'm a Survivor I'm an exception I'm able to sit here and talk to you about it uh I saw they didn't work that we were being hypocritical and uh I never felt guilty about using drugs and I don't think kids should who cares what you've done in the past the question is what you're doing today and it's no reason to continue using drugs just because if you stop then you have to say you made a mistake that's silly some people have said today is the beginning of the rest of your life and that's where the decision should be made don't feel regretful over what you've done but start making clear decisions about what you're going to do in the [Music] future the choice is yours you can change the world or you can cop out with drugs if you're thinking about drugs think about this what do you do when the Music Stops where are you then where are you then and you've dropped fullblown on all the mountain tops where he is then my friend what do you see when your pupils contract when you're out in the alley after your act and you're not quite old and the straight world's intact where are you then my friend you can choose to change the world but for that you need your head straight and in the right place if you choose drugs instead where are we then my friend where are we then