Drugs: The Children Are Choosing (1970)

I'm James Fatiman. On this program and on the six which follow, we will be exploring the world of drug, the complex issues raised by drugs in our society, and particularly the rising concern with drug use among children in elementary and junior high schools. Now you may say this doesn't concern me or my children or my community but this is less and less true. We found that if you ask any child in this age range do you know other children who are using drugs the answer is usually yes. This was not true several years ago. The change has been sudden swift and dramatic. Now, there are a host of attitudes, points of view, and information that we're all exposed to on this subject. Some confuses us, some allows us to become complacent, some disturbs us, some is illuminating. School children hear them all and must make decisions. Well, I I think that uh there are actually two two ways in which amphetamines in particular may be uh misused or abused. Um, perhaps the largest single group of of drug uh abusers or or misusers are are housewives and truck drivers and professional people who who use um amphetamines for reasons uh other than weight loss or uh as anti-depressants or treatment in narcolepsy. [Applause] [Music] But the other thing that comes very clear is that most people are involved in the drug scene because of their own head problems, not because of the world. >> Well, they'll stone you when you're trying to be so good. They'll stone you just like they said they would. They stone you when you're trying to go home. They'll stone you when you're there all along. Why would I feel so all alone? Everybody must get start. [Music] Now wait a minute. You know my baby, she won't let me in. I've got to feel this. I'm going to buy myself a bology and then I'm going to call my buddy on the telephone and say broken. And kids aren't stupid. They really know where to get drugs. And I feel it's easier to find to get acid or speed or something than it is to buy bubble gum in a store cuz you have to wait in line. [Music] >> You know, I work so hard [Music] everything seem to always turn out wrong. That's why I want to stop by on my way home and say there is a relationship between the use of marijuana and the eventual use of heroin. Apparently, I don't think it's a causal relationship. And this is not the reason why marijuana or cannabis sativa is in our statutes as a dangerous substance or as a narcotic or anything else. It is a dangerous substance all by itself. We have found here in our area that one of the most effective approaches to young people is to um chat with them about um uh what kind of a person are we when um the only way we can get kicks and the only way we can have a meaningful party, the only way we can get pressures uh off our backs and the only way we can cope with situations is through a chemical. Then we're not really much of a person. >> I'm sick of your crying and moaning and sighing in spite of trying to be a good wife. My wash is the brightest by making the lightest. My teeth are the whitest you've seen in your life. My energy straining from all of this straining. You're always complaining and sticking the knife. >> Maybe I'm being a little fat hideous. Sorry I said that our marriage was bad. I could have said horrible. Maybe you're hideous. But if I did, you would probably get mad. He's being despotic. >> She doesn't make sense. >> I'm feeling neurotic. >> I'm terribly tense. >> I'm being rejected. >> I'm always suspected. >> What is complaint? >> She makes up with pain. >> I go home to mother. >> I find me another happy I >> am. You hear my complaint. If you make up and you're letting your figure go, figure [Applause] [Music] a minute. Don't let nervous tension make you fit to kill. Take that little blue pill. [Music] A pill. [Music] Appeill. [Music] [Music] [Music] My headache is my nerves. My tension is easy. I find you more pleasing. I'm losing my tension. My room is no longer so happy, so I feel so excited. living after dinner. >> Call up my mother. >> Three when you get up. Six when you're fed up. >> Four when you're lazy. 12 when you're crazy. Crazy. Get up. It's stimulating, mind expanding, safer to use than alcohol. It's the in thing, the hula hoop of the jet generation, and as much a part of growing up as smoking corn silk behind the back fence. Such are the myths concerning marijuana. Myths that lull thousands of young people into experimenting with a noxious weed. The facts are otherwise. Marijuana is an intoxicating, mindmling drug. Its use can lead to abnormal behavior, to psychological dependence, and to abuse of other drugs. The human brain, after all, is made for thinking, not fumigating. It's hardly a tinker toy for experimenting with drugs. This has been a public service message of the American Medical Association and your local station. I think a joint's a little bit more strong than a martini because well some people a martini can uh really thrown flying but a joint usually always takes you high gets you high and a martini you just feel a little bit better. You don't really get the point where you can't drive a car or anything. >> A lot of doctors they recommend like a glass of wine or a small drink when you come home to relax you. But marijuana does a little more than just relax you. I think >> one joint wouldn't wouldn't do all that much unless it was >> pretty powerful. But I think if you just wanted to relax a little bit, that's why a lot of people smoke just to relax themselves a little bit. I you know, I don't say if you're disgusted, go home and get stoned. You know, that that's not the idea. But I think some people drink socially, they call it. But I think a lot of adults drink just because drinks are going around. really not much different than teenagers. >> I don't think so. >> Today's program will look at the pervasive drug influences in today's America with comments by experts on aspects of the drug problem. Later programs will look at the role of drugs in other cultures and the pharmarmacology of specific drugs. We will see how children are exposed to drugs at an early age. We will observe a series of dialogues between teachers, children and consultants. Two communities responses to the issues will be presented. Finally, we will see children and adults working together to better understand each other and consider alternatives to drug experimentation. Let us begin now with a key statement by Dr. Dr. Joel Fort, former drug consultant to the World Health Organization, former director of the Council on Alcoholism for Alama County, and presently lecturer in the school of social welfare at the University of California at Berkeley. First of all, we live in a drugridden or drugs saturated society where people are taught from infancy to use a wide variety of mindaltering drugs. And uh older people like many younger people have conformed to the pressures, the massive advertising and promotion and distribution of certain drugs, the glorification of certain other drugs such as marijuana and LSD by the mass media, politicians, and drug policemen. uh the uh desire to find or at least to seek escape, relaxation, uh sometimes feeling with many people uh essentially not being able to feel anything. Uh a uh sense of uh socializing with other people is certainly involved. Going along with the crowd, again, I think we're taught uh that we cannot have a good time. cannot find uh happiness or significance in life without depending on one or more mindaltering drugs. People don't have parties without drugs. uh [ __ ] the cocktail party of course being the most common group drug experience in American society and they uh have accepted in in essence uh I think as a summary answer to the question uh the adult world and an increasing number of young people as well have accepted and are living the industrial slogan of better living through chemistry. A study by the Stanford Research Institute indicates that the average middle-class home contains about 30 medications. Half of these are prescribed on the advice of medical doctors. Most of the rest are self-prescribed, bought on the advice of friends or through advertising. Pharmaceutical products are big business about 8 billion dollars worth in 1967. It is an industry that grows on vigorous research and new product development. Seven out of 10 prescriptions written today are for drugs that were unknown 15 years ago. Advertising is essential to the drug manufacturer. One major stream of advertising is to the 265,000 MDs who write prescriptions. Here is the accumulation of one week's mail to a psychiatrist, a gynecologist, and a pediatrician. MDs receive an average of 8,000 pieces of advertising samples and brochures a year. For the rest of us, advertising teaches, directs, and channels our uncertainties about illness, medication, and mood changing drugs into specific products to buy. In the first version of this program, several television commercials were seen. one for a national brand of wine, one for a headache remedy, and one for a tablet good for headaches, stomach upset, colds, etc. All of the companies involved later withdrew their permissions. In point of fact, all but one of the numerous companies we contacted were unwilling to have their commercials viewed in the context of this program. Many told us that they felt it was inappropriate to have their product seen as part of a drugusing culture. It is clear, however, that some drug advertisers describe their products in such glowing terms that our children begin to associate adult drug use with magical properties of mood change, instant relief, and other allpervasive effects. The corporations who were unwilling to air their television commercials were companies selling beer, wine, coffee, aspirin related products, cold pills, and medications for children. For the next few days, notice these products and notice how they are advertised. Consider what attitudes your children are learning. Obviously, diseases have been checked. Life has been extended and living conditions have been improved through the use of drugs. But the basic message of these and other advertisements is that the quality of life can be improved through drugs. It would appear that we are living in a drug conscious and a drugusing society. This series, however, is not about all drugs and not about all people, but centers on the young, their interest, their fascination with drugs. In a drug conscious society, whether we like it or not, a growing number of children are experimenting with a growing number of drugs at an earlier and earlier age. [Music] One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small. And the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all. Go ask Alice when she's 10 ft tall. That was part of a song called White Rabbit by the Jefferson Airplane. It was very popular with the young. It refers repeatedly to drugs. Many adults are puzzled by this kind of music. Children are puzzled when you tell them this. It is simply another reflection of the growing interest in drugs among the young. Why this interest? There are many kinds of answers. We've asked experts from a variety of backgrounds. An inservice instructor in drug education. Uh drugs are here to stay. They've been here for quite a while. People of all age levels use them, be it from the very young or to the very old. I don't think collectively we can come up with one solution. >> A judge of the superior court of the city and county of San Francisco. For four years, I served as judge of the psychiatric department of the superior court out at San Francisco General Hospital. And in that capacity, I had to determine whether or not people and young people in particular would be sent to the state hospital. And there I saw the tragic impact of drug abuse upon our children. And I said to myself that something ought to be done about it. And what can be done about it? Well, now let me give you a contrast which perhaps might furnish an answer. I don't think the answer lies in criminal sanctions and harsh criminal sanctions. You see, now I preside over the criminal department of the superior court and people are brought before me because they have used drugs and the penalties are very severe and the people are treated as criminals and not as sick people. But I want to make this clear that it is the law and the law must be obeyed. And in this connection, I'd like to call attention to the fact that in my office are 2,000 affidavits filed by people in a case attacking the constitutionality of the marijuana statute. And among the 2,000 people, all of them said that marijuana was not harmful. And most of them said marijuana was not harmful because they themselves had used it. Now, I disagree with these people. I think that marijuana is harmful, psychologically harmful, and I do not believe that marijuana should be legalized. But what causes me uh a shock, if I may say so, is that 2,000 people in effect have indicated that they have violated the law. Now, the answer does not lie in violating the law. The answer lies in attempting by democratic means to change the law. Now, it may well be that the legislature at some time in the future may change the law and say that violations of the law for drug use shall not be punished by criminal sanctions. But until that is done, the law must be obeyed. I do think that the penalties are much too severe. I do not think, for example, that a person who uses a drug should be treated as the same type of criminal that is the man who takes a gun and robs someone or the man who kills or the man who steals. I'm >> a child psychiatrist of >> stimulation. We know that some of the drugs taken are simply for the hallucinogenic effect. They can take downers or uppers or middlers. In any case, the need for stimulation, sensory stimulation is obviously manifest in their non-drug behavior. And this is found in the music, in the dress, and the clothing and the bazaar. It's almost as if one were sensory hungry. And that the hunger somehow in suburbia was not met. And it is my very definite opinion that until we find modalities of stimulating the young mind and body within either the school setting or in the community where they can feel a part of something where something has meaning where there's feedback from say adult to youth and youth to adult that we're going to be missing the boat in any educational program. Where did this need for stimulation come from? And remember the key word stimulation which is opposite to boredom. And if there's any common phrase used as to why youngsters are taking drugs or doing the more bizarre or weigh out things, it is that they are bored. >> An amphetamine researcher. >> Well, if you're talking about the use of amphetamines introvenously, I think there are two two drug effects which are are important. Uh number one is the immediate effect of the drug that is the flash or the rush which is uh in many ways similar to a total body orgasm. And a lot of people who who use amphetamines um use them primarily for the for the flash or rush. This very this very delightful feeling that that that one initially has. Secondly, there's a long range stimulative effect um where one feels euphoric uh very confident of his abilities. He he feels that he's able to to think very quickly that he's very perceptive. In some cases, if used over a long period of time, the empetamines become almost psychedelic in effect. Um finally there's the kind of lifestyle that one gets caught up in uh namely the the total involvement in using and procuring empetamines and and in a sense his life becomes uh very similar to the the kind of life that a heroin addict leads that he is totally consumed with with um with the use and obtaining of drugs and his friends are are involved in the drug scene and there's a certain excitement and challenge about that whole scene that that is very attractive to some people, >> a minister. >> Some kids are misusing drugs because they've got a pretty distorted picture of who they are. They're healthy kids. They've got a lot to go uh going for them in terms of their ability to study, to relate, to be free, but for some reason that's not the way they see themselves. That may be the way the world views them, but that's not the way they see themselves. And so they continue in their drug abuse to um to um to kind of u cope with a kind of an unhappy world. I counsel a girl now for instance uh who every Sunday night becomes very nervous, very anxious. She's um was very uptight. Um she is trying to prepare herself for facing school on Monday. Now this girl is in in best sense of the word beautiful. And I don't mean just physically. She's really great. She's comes from a pretty solid family. She's got tremendous potential. She's open and free. She laughs, but she feels rejected. Now, in some way, she's trying to handle a social kind of problem uh which uh by any objective measure really does not exist, but it's a way of coping and drugs accomplish a great deal in in a short period of time. She takes barbituates almost exclusively reds or schnoyl and uh it allows her just to back off from the pain of what she feels as rejection. So those who I think stay with it are people who who u are trying to cope with uh kind of a negative self-image uh whether it's real or imaginary. >> Um I always qualify that because I'm a I don't like to generalize. Not all users are escapists. Not all of them are are clamoring after a a crutch of some sort. But some those that act out in extreme fashion are people that are hurt people. This is their way of kind of pulling back into a corner and saying, "Well, at least I got this thing. This is my bag." >> A superintendent of schools. The people in our district who have spent a great deal of time talking with young people um tell me that the young people continually say that there is a breakdown in communication with the parents. That the parents either uh are not interested in listening or that they don't have the time to listen or that they don't care. Uh the fact that their parents may be over involved in work or in various other activities which they may have. Um, this is the sort of feedback that we get. >> We talked with two men of widely different experience. One, Dr. Steven Patel, works in a research project in hate ashberry. The other, Don McHune, is a director of instruction in a middle class school system. It is interesting how their comments reinforce each other. >> Drugs, the young people that are using the drugs come from every walk of life. The old stereotype that uh only the bad kids from bad environments and bad homes are the drug users just doesn't hold true anymore. We're quite sure now that the drug problem goes through our society from one continuum to the other. those who are economically welloff, those who are economically poor, and all those in between, those who come from the good parts of town, quote, and the bad parts of town. Uh, everyone, there is no one that escapes it. They come from very diversified backgrounds, from middle class families, lowerass families, even a number of upper class families. Geographically, they come from all over the United States. >> The peerroup pressure that our young people are under today, the desire to be with the group, to be one of them, is certainly a very key factor in their turning to the use of drugs. >> I guess the only thing that they have in common is their failure to find some sort of identity in any previous environment that they've been in. They feel that they are more at home with the people who are here in the hate ashberry who are using drugs and they feel that they can communicate better with others who use drugs. Young people in school today are being um asked to perform at levels which uh we uh seriously doubted were possible in years before. So therefore, we're we're having emotional pressures on our young people. And some of them are turning to drugs to escape. Others are turning to drugs to turn on instead of turning off, to become stimulated. They seek excitement and psychologically they're somewhat unstable and turn to the use of drugs to do this. They are often lonely, sometimes confused and often very idealistic young people who are trying to find some meaning in life through the hippie culture and through the use of drugs. Young, sensitive, bored, maladjusted, searching or curious children are attracted to drug experimentation in a drug oriented society. Ours is not the first culture to grapple with the attractiveness of drugs, but rarely has a culture focused this kind of attention on the issue. This series will look at the most basic of these issues. The children are choosing. I believe that in education we are obligated to give these young people the knowledge so that they can make a proper decision. We know that the decisions that are being made by young people are made when we're not there to help them. So therefore, we must prepare them to make these decisions. And if we believe in education, then we must believe in knowledge and the knowledge that helps them make these decisions. Now if you're tired or a bit run down, can't seem to get your feet off the ground. Maybe you want to try a little bit of LSD. Only if you want to shake your head and your brain. Maybe you act just a bit insane. Give you all the psychic energy you need. Eat flowers and kiss babies [Music] for you and me. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]