THE PERFECT DRUG

[Applause] [Music] do you remember when that was the perfect time no side-effects unless you got too busy and the hell would it be nice if there was a way to feel that good some great camera some wonderful drug would be non addictive and socially acceptable a drug that would do no harm to the body a drug that would do no injury to the brain a perfect drug that would do no injury to the nervous system [Music] Wow wouldn't that be the perfect drug take one pill to feel good take two to feel might as well say it hi inexpensive - nickel apiece legal founded medicine chest everywhere available without a prescription and in vending machines everywhere it sound too good to be true well hold on to your heads medical science is almost there mm-hmm because some scientists claim that they have already developed this perfect drug isn't it interesting how how mankind has always look to that that perfect drug way way back you know primitive man and his lady discovered that certain roots leaves and vegetation would make them relax or feel good very good [Music] [Music] some of our more sophisticated ancestors were able to turn their knowledge about some of nature's hallucinogenic goodies into a very good thing they became our first self-professed contacts with the supreme spirit or spirits and with the generous dispensation of the magic potions were able to make the other members of the group suggestible enough to see whatever they were told they were gonna see it was especially effective just before a battle and so effective that you just couldn't wait to go out to kill the spiritual it didn't take long to discover that fermented honey or fruit would also do the trick the alcohol trick and you feel relaxed and very good and so a cheap alcohol is elixir yeah but it's also drug [Music] in about 1,500 BC in ancient Egypt and Persia opium was a big thing to relax and feel good it's easy to see why it's first known name was Gil meaning joy or rejoicing and it was also used as medicine and it's used for both joy and medicine spread to Rome in Greece where the Greeks named of opium their word for poppy juice he surprised that opium use didn't originate in China oh it only got to China because Arab traders brought it during the tenth century AD something that could make so many people relax and feel good could only become big business and that it did so big that by the 17th century England had a world monopoly on the opium market trading it for tea silk and silver with China which of course produced millions of opium addicts in China and finally made the Chinese government declare all opium trade with England illegal believe it or not England and China went to war about what England felt was an unfair restraint of prey the war lasted three years and China lost it didn't take too long for England as the winner to arrange for even greater opium crops in China and the legalization of importing opium from India and because opium could make millions of Chinese relax and feel good and Indians relax and feel good the normal economic development of both countries didn't take place [Music] years later the Japanese in their war with China brought tons of opium and heroin into the other areas they come to occupy these drugs kept the Chinese feeling so relaxed so good that they just didn't do much fighting back it also provided Japan with a great deal of income they used in their war efforts against China anyway it would take years to tell the story of the political intrigue and bloodshed caused by the juice of this lovely flower the poppy the effects of the lovely poppy were also familiar to a Greek called home or about three thousand years ago he tells this story in the Odyssey it's a drug potent against pain and quarrels and charged with a forgetfulness of all trouble whoever drank this opium mingled in the bowl not one tear would he let fall all day long not if mother and father would die not if a dear son or brother would die before his eyes I think it'd be safe to say that that's a cool relaxed and feeling no pain response wouldn't you by the 1800s opium was in great use in the u.s. that could be found not only in so-called opium dens but in the medicine chests and some of our nicest stray domes however before the Civil War pharmacologist had been forced developed morphine as a medical substitute for opium which had proven to be extremely addictive when morphine was used to relieve pain and suffering during the Civil War it proved it be even more addicting than you know what that's right okay so drug scientists being as cooperative as they are invented a new drug one they claimed would not only be non addictive but stronger as well for this drug they modestly coined the name heroin in honor of the heroic claims made for this new drug who knows how many people have died of either heroin overdose or heroin connected deaths just another drug used before it was really proven safe and by that ever increasing number of people who don't care what they swallow or pump into their veins in the late 1800s before the government set up the Pure Food and Drug Administration there were thousands of cure-all products that at best could be considered harmless this list included many 80 and 90 proof alcohol medications as well as opium morphine another drug some of these narcotic based medications created many addicts about one out of every 400 people most of them women who knows how many people died because they didn't get legitimate medical care instead of merely relief and pain and anxiety is it strange how mankind is so careless about what kind of junk they'll drop into their bodies now this weird history of drugs takes an even weirder turn no longer drugs created for medicinal use which then becomes diverted and abused by the relax and feel good folks now drugs are discovered by the relax and feel good folks first before doctors is he gone it was discovered that breathing in ether fumes during chemical experiments would make the students high and do silly things it didn't take long for it to get around that ether was a great kick and a little sniff would make you relax a little more would make you feel good and you know which of those two possibilities were acted on a host so when the early 1800s young people would have ether parties called at that time ether frolics ether for reform and laughing gas parties were also held in many universities in the United States and even in the very conservative Cambridge University in England so way back then about 70 years ago you heard it said a smashing league team disinhibitor of the mind inside that's all great consciousness expander sound familiar lady breathe deeply some of the community's straightest citizens held ether chloroform or laughing gas parties in their own homes again again when it becomes illegal to sell this gas without a prescription it doesn't take long for the maker buck business mind to exploit this gas in the form of scientific lectures and shows ladies and gentlemen what you will see here tonight is one of the newest wonders of modern science when mankind has finally discovered worry to shed hair they said all the York symbols of everyday life prove it what with all the interest in the drugs it didn't take too long but one of the more creative would be millionaires to try to raise money for a chain of gas of paradise taverns persons desirous of taking The Ecstatic or seraphic breaths would be required to go to the cushion room for the violent emotion of ecstasy and thus erratic Transportation's it might be excited might be more safely indulged in in a retired or private situation than in or at the public bar or opens happen notice how the gas a paradise is compared with alcohol just like marijuana is compared to alcohol even today it is a cleanly times evening exhilarating angel izing vapor or as spiritus liquors are be sodding brutalizing devil inspiring drops which in the end clog the ideas in an 1808 caricature this man says the world's a dirty planet I no longer character man it sounds like the original version of tune in turn on drop out wow that seems like so long ago in there which may be why it took until 1846 almost 40 years for doctors to use ether as an anesthetic and until 1868 for nitrous oxide also called laughing gas to be used as an anesthetic by Denis kind of makes you wonder about necessity really being the mother of invention if it took all that time to use the ether a nitrous oxide to eliminate pain hey can you imagine a tooth extraction then without a painkiller or operations and amputations without painkillers while down the road of peace people laugh it up when ether or laughing guys meanwhile back at the labs other drugs are being discovered and created drugs that are to be used in the practice of medicine only however when modern science discovers barbiturates sedatives like second I'll never be told to and all it cetera would you prescribe very carefully and based on the doctors knowledge of the patient's physical and emotional condition problem very tense and very nervous we have difficulty sleeping it doesn't take long for some pill freak to glom onto them for relaxing and feeling good dr. Cowan is there a predictable result yes there is people who take Bubba traits while waking will become intoxicated if they take enough they'll be comatose if they continue for weeks they will fall into the tolerance trap which means they have to continue to up the dose so that they'll get the original effect so accidental death from barbiturates a real hazards would be Downers and then they're faced with withdrawal effects if they suddenly stop they go into serious condition which can be more lethal than when amphetamines are discovered as a drug to retreat a rare disease like narcolepsy a form of sleeping sickness oh and only it's incidentally as an appetite depressant prescribed by doctors for those who want to lose weight someone discovers that it makes them feel relaxed and very very good hi so depending on that person's need to get high and/or forget even if only for a while certain depressing problems in their lives they start popping pills like Benny's Dexys you know uppers and then yeah they're just bound to meet that one helpful friend we've chosen the daring you know skin popping number and then later the maximum version of being a truly modern hip cat or chick of our time out of shoot speed dr. Cohen tell us now what's the timetable for the typical speed scene that varies it may be that in a week a speed freak a person who shoots speed intravenously can run up to a thousand milligrams at a clip and repeat that many times a day that's well over 500 times the average dose so that it's really a fantastic amount of their feta means is being used this in turn causes all sorts of problems paranoid thinking delusions of persecution for example and real brain damage if the speed has continued over a period of months or years this has been proven in both animal and human work and beyond that of course we know now that the speed psychosis is identical or almost identical to paranoid schizophrenia so that speed is a bad deal and I don't know if anybody who approves it back of it except the speed freak well it may interest you to know that after 60 years of intensive amphetamine research only now doctors Halford and Citroen have found that there's a disease of the blood vessels of the vital organs of the body caused by prolonged amphetamine use and this has some frightening overtones in the normal individual we see a kidney where the blood vessels are smooth they taper in a nice fashion and they are orderly throughout the kidney in this individual who is an 18 year old boy who died following the use of speed you see that the blood vessels had disappeared from many areas of the kidney and this tissue has died the remaining blood vessels show irregular changes and there are areas of little blister formation which is part of the abnormality due to the destruction of the wall of the blood vessel this then is the proof that methamphetamine abuse can destroy the blood vessels within the body and this may end in the death of the patient it is true that many of the individuals do not show changes in their blood vessels that are advanced to this degree but many of them do show definite changes which may progress it would then seem important that if the individual released themselves from the abuse of drugs such as speed that they can then regain normal health no us modern citizens we think we've come upon something really new well the Chinese we're into smoke and grass about five thousand years ago yeah hundreds and thousands of years before the Chinese grazing animals were we we all know dr. Cohen that that there are certain positive results that come from smoking marijuana but well I think we're also interested in knowing what negative aspects there are to it yeah yes one thing that I'm rather impressed with is the recent work that's come out indicating that there is an important loss of immediate recall or memory in connection with smoking ordinary marijuana you don't remember what you just did or said you don't remember whether you did or didn't put your foot on the brake this can be of course dangerous obviously and you really have to wonder whether this has any long-term effects to we we're not sure of that point but in the street they've known this state for years and they call it being spaced out doctor Cohen I feel that that marijuana is not necessarily the real problem I think the real problem is the psychological state of the person who's getting stoned all etana this is the guy who made feel inadequate he may be anxious or depressed and instead of dealing his feelings of inadequacy or anxiety decide to solve them with marijuana I think that a person who can't handle his pot is just in the same position as a person who can't handle his booze his rock from his acid his scag his Downers and his uppers the person who open does any chemical has a real personality problem he's caught in the trap of somehow feeling so inadequate within himself that he's hoping for some chemical that will cure him of what he is right how about any any physical problems from smoking marijuana we're not too concerned about physical damage in connection with pot of course you remember the tobacco story it took 300 years for us to rebid know that tobacco could cause cancer and what's going to come out with pot we don't know the research with marijuana is only a half dozen years old so all I would like to say now is we don't know about physical difficulty I'm very impressed with the fact that a lot of heavy pot users are at an age group when they should be developing ways of coping with stress ways of overcoming frustration in other words ways of growing up and unfortunately this isn't the way to grow up dr. Cowan what about some of us who are just plain bored yes well people who can enjoy what's going on inside their head or who can't find activities that are interesting and worthwhile outside of them these are people who are bored and who readily get involved with drugs for that reason they have difficulty enjoying difficulty relating with other people these are things that they feel very uneasy about and try to correct with a chemical and of course the chemical doesn't ever do it really they don't learn how to relate with people they don't learn how to enjoy life they don't learn how to enhance their own development and so they're in trouble in the relaxed and feel-good Department psychedelic at essence can be found one drug that makes marijuana seem like a little old feeble weed that drug is LSD where one hollow marijuana seed can contain enough pure LSD for 2,500 trips no no LSD doesn't grow in marijuana see it grows artificially in an illegal laboratory like this where the skills and knowledge of these so-called chemists make the users of this product run the risk of a poisonous ingredient and bad side effect from defective acid what makes it even worse is that not only are amphetamines mixed with LSD but sometimes strychnine a deadly poison all this in the interests of a new and higher high in the great LSD chromosome damage debate some doctors say there is chromosome damage and others say that they're not sure but practically all of them say that it will take years to be absolutely certain about the long term effects of the damage and they advise not taking LSD until it's proven safe dr. Cohen tell me now what about the bum trips well anyone can have one that's been proven although people who are rather disturbed and have it more frequently what it amounts to is that it's a revelation to oneself of some hidden fears particularly about oneself it's our own Pandora's box of suppressed memories if suddenly and unexpectedly opens up in terrifies you it was a delusion that they were stronger than an oncoming car [Music] for what at least it was the fantasy that he was more powerful online bum trips have been known to flip you into a depression or psychosis possibly resulting in suicide [Music] tell me doctor is LSD being used now with any positive results well it certainly has taught us a good deal about the nature of the mind and how it works furthermore there's some hopeful work that it will help with certain kinds of psychiatric problems for example infantile autism which is a form of childhood schizophrenia may be helped by LSD and then we've been doing some research in which we're trying to make people who are dying and know they're dying usually a painful death of cancer to make them accept their death more readily than they do this is a sort of thing that LSD might hopefully be used for and someday in the future let's go back to our perfect drug the one that costs a nickel is non addictive and legal legal for adults and for youngsters 12 years and older what would life be like let's start with 12 year old problem with a bully [Music] pop a pill and relax [Music] remember don't hitchhike it's too dangerous mother explains what can happen if the hitch rides with strange men cool it don't listen to what she's telling you you're relaxed and that's all it counts [Music] can't get along with your brother you want to have to work it out take a pill we'll never have to learn to live with another person at all they had your license revoked and you're driving without a license and you hit someone and they're hurt don't worry about it take a pill take off by the time you get home you'll be completely relaxed you connect the best earphones money can buy to your television set to see the pretty colors and the whole idea backfire relax take a pill watch the pretty colored spots floating in the air the British instead of come have a tough teacher one who expects you to actually learn in their class what I'm giving you an F so what if you repeat this class during summer vacation and your girlfriend wins your best boyfriend away relax time for another pillow tube [Music] this practice the guitar and your music teachers disappointed in your lack of interest take a pill [Music] hey and offer him one to have the lead in the school play and the lines have been changed if you're worried about learning a pop two pills and don't worry they changed your lines not you [Music] and what if your surgeon felt the operation wasn't going too well popped a couple of the perfect drug pills [Music] this paper in the news commentator and what if your teachers pop pills when the class wasn't too attentive or prepared [Music] [Applause] 105 5 where would you be if your parents pop pills when you got sick or popped a pill during an emergency or in any kind of trouble Joey what are you doing why are you playing in the poison you know you shouldn't be in there and what will happen if this generation grows up to be our future government and pops pills every time it is faced with the same old national and international problems that we haven't solved today in case you haven't got the point what if no one really wanted to work at jobs that were boring or frustrating a dangerous of very unpleasant like collecting the heavy dirty smelly garbage who'd risk their lives for strangers and burning buildings or risk their lives to build a high-rise home for you or risk their lives to build a dam for you to have water and electricity or risk their lives for you in the bomb squad of the police force and with that perfect pill to fight boredom fatigue and discouragement how many people would finish the demanding studies of a doctor a physicist a teacher a conductor a psychiatrist or an astronaut by now it must be obvious that the answer to what bugs the world is not a perfect drug as a matter of fact the more perfect the drug the greater our problems and the longer they'd last which brings us to some of our less than perfect drugs like marijuana peyote LSD psilocybin DMT STP and the amphetamines like the so called perfect drug they also don't create a physical dependency addiction but like the so called perfect drug they do exactly the same thing when they take you out of it so you don't feel the need to cope with the problems of living and the result of not coping with problems well it can it can produce an immature fifty-year-old providing there's enough air water and food to go right out the time wouldn't it be sad if the idealism and the intelligence of our next generation would be canceled out by getting hung up on marijuana or by this chemist [Music] this loaded syringe for these pretty colored pills far-fetched or not if there were that perfect drug where all you need to do would be to relax and feel good mankind would probably stop developing because there'd be no urgent need to think or solve problems and like the dinosaur who was so big and strong and he didn't really need to use his brain to survive that brain didn't develop and other animals whose brains did took over the dinosaur he ended up in a museum [Music] now wouldn't it be weird if if mankind took that same route I mean that is if if he didn't kill himself with Wars and destroying his planet if mankind just kept developing and popping better and more perfect pills when things got too much for him so when the Hardy cockroaches who have been around for millions and millions of years before and after the dinosaur took over they'd go to a museum and man the good old Homo sapiens he'd be there still smiling but in a glass case just like the extinct dinosaur the perfect drug is on its way are you ready for it [Music]