Focus On: Uppers

focus for maximum picture quality and please adjust sound for maximum clarity hey grace come on let's go i'll be right there man okay [Music] foreign [Music] i guess it's clear what all these people have in common they all take pills a certain type of pill called an amphetamine commonly referred to as speed though it may be any one of several drugs such as benzedrine dexadrine or methadrane this athlete's coach warned the team that anyone using uppers would be suspended from athletic competition and that winning a race is something you do not something done for you by a drug besides your muscles are capable of moving you just so fast and if they're pressed to do more well [Music] [Applause] she didn't get much sleep the night before i wonder whether she thinks taking those pills was such a good idea now there are many teenagers who take speed just for the kick the high you gave them hey man hey i'll take some too [Music] unfortunately for many this high feeling turns into aggressiveness the slightest annoyance you stupid idiot can't you keep it in the cup all these people made the same mistake the mistake of taking a pill that wasn't prescribed by a doctor now of course all pills that you take don't have to be prescribed by a doctor there are pills you can take to stop the pain of a headache there are pills you can take without a doctor's prescription to help you sleep and of course there are the caffeine pills if you want to stay awake but that's not all the pills there are not by a long shot there are also pills to make you feel up and pills to bring you down pills to make your heart beat faster and pills to make it beat slower pills to help you lose weight and pills to help you gain weight all of these pills however must be taken only on a doctor's advice and supervision a doctor who is concerned with your weight your blood pressure your complete medical history emotional condition and how well you handle the strains of school parents and friends this man you wouldn't fly in an airplane without an expert an experienced pilot you would only trust your car your life to an experienced mechanic and you'd only go to a qualified dentist to have your teeth worked on are you gonna trust your body to him do you think he's qualified well let's talk with someone who is qualified someone who's been working with amphetamines all his professional life as a physician at the los angeles free clinic i'm only too aware of the growing number of pill taking teenagers through my talks with a great number of them i've discovered some basic patterns of amphetamine abuse which i feel we all should become aware of usually the speed user complains that he's tired all the time that he can't seem to get into things unless he takes some more kills until he's no longer taking the upper for the high feeling he once got but just to be able to feel normal like his friends because the body quickly gets used to the effects of amphetamines the user has difficulty getting up in the morning and must take more and more of the drug because without it the user doesn't have the energy to get up and in this case enough energy to get to school on time or get there at all you really don't know what to get you know another common complaint of the amphetamine user is the almost complete lack of desire for food many users go for days weeks even months consuming a fraction of their normal food requirements um he died or something this is because amphetamines kill your appetite they work in the body to block the physical sensation of being hungry that's why they're prescribed by qualified physicians for patients with overweight problems but if they're taken in dosages in amounts not recommended by a physician the user often neglects to eat when he must leaving his body in a severely run-down condition the body also needs a certain amount of sleep even if it's just to sit in class or walk home from school your body must rest at night the problem is that amphetamines act as stimulants to the central nervous system the brain and if you have to take more and more of them just to function you'll be keeping yourself from getting the sleep which your body must have another very important factor and one which must be considered by anyone planning to take or taking amphetamines is that there is enough scientific evidence at the current time to show that amphetamines when taken in large doses causes death of brain cells brain cells do not regenerate they do not grow back this is why amphetamine should only be prescribed by a physician for he is the only expert who can tell you the proper dosage and amount to take this medication i personally never give any of my patients amphetamines well it turns out that dr citron bomb was right and not prescribing amphetamines to his patients because very soon after he's saying that a seven-man team of doctors at the los angeles county university of southern california medical center announced proof of the severe and deadly damage to the vital organs of the body through the excessive use of amphetamine drugs recently we have found that patients who use methamphetamine or speed can get changes in their blood vessels the changes in the blood vessels can lead to serious disease or death what happens to these people they can get blind they can have vomiting of blood or they can have kidney failure also many of these patients will develop muscle aches and pains and the pain in the muscles will be so severe that they can either walk nor sit comfortably diseases of blood vessels are quite difficult to diagnose however dr mort halpern colleague of mine has found a way to do this quite simply these young patients were sent to me for study when the usual means of diagnosis did not determine precisely what was wrong with them i use a technique of studying the blood vessels inside the organs of a living patient let me show you what i mean this is a kidney a normal kidney with a normal blood vessel into the kidney and you see smooth vessels that branch in a very orderly fashion throughout the kidney it's like a healthy tree here is the kidney of a young boy who died after taking speed for two years and there are many areas where he no longer has a blood supply and these areas of the kidney have died the vessels that are left behind are very irregular and they have many little blisters on them i can show you this even better in this liver of a young woman who died of her drug abuse and here you see large blisters on many of the vessels and many areas in the liver where there is no blood supply at all in summary really the important thing is that we now know through the research that methamphetamine does cause an organic disease of the body uh which can kill kind of makes you wonder what all the other research about drugs will show we can't ever forget how recently drug abuse has become a problem and considering how little time we've had to do drug research who knows how much damage people have done to their bodies in the past few years now we know how much amphetamines or uppers can affect the body but there's more to the case against amphetamine abuse than just the effect on the body let's see how amphetamines affect our personality our mental and emotional life cinderella dressed in yellow went upstairs to kiss the fella by the stake she kissed the stick how many doctors of the billions of amphetamine pills manufactured legally in the united states it is estimated that at least one half of them end up being sold by the illegal pusher more and more these pills are finding their way into the hands of younger and younger people what makes these teenagers take uppers is there something special something different about people who take uppers this girl takes speed because she has problems with her parents he takes uppers because his schoolwork is bad and the high helps him forget about his poor grades she takes amphetamines because her boyfriend broke up with her for being moody now she just wants to forget about it that she is moody and knows it but doesn't know what to do about it he takes uppers because he's bored doesn't know what to do with himself speed helps him enjoy doing nothing he takes the pills just to belong he is afraid to say no because he wants to be part of what other people are doing no matter what it is and maybe she takes pills for all of these reasons or maybe none of them or maybe just to get high for many youngsters it can really be as simple as that well everyone has problems and there are as many reasons teenagers take pills as there are problems however will dropping pills solve the problems she has with her parents will dropping pills get him better test marks will dropping pills help her to deal with the problems that cause her moodiness if his friends won't associate with him unless he drops pills are they really friends will dropping uppers help him discover himself and the things around him so he can enjoy life as it is does she know that it will take more and more amphetamine pills to get high until it does her harm physically as well as psychologically and is she really solving her problems or is she running away from them well that's it you have to decide for yourself if you agree with dr spiegel that the only way to solve your problems is to deal with them and you'll also agree that copping out on drugs won't solve them if you agree with dr citron bomb dr halperin and dr citron that phenomenons are a dangerous drug you'll also agree that they're dangerous for you if you agree with me that we owe it to ourselves to learn how to prepare ourselves to make this a better world for all of us and you'll also agree that taking drugs only interferes with that plan you may also want to think of this taking drugs affects not only ourselves not only the people we love and the people who love us but the rest of us all of us [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you