Needle Exchange Comes of Age Needle Exchange Comes of Age
Fighting AIDS in the streets.
Dec 8, 2010 / Feature / David Kirp
Drug Addicts With Dirty Needles Drug Addicts With Dirty Needles
The AIDS Connection
Dec 8, 2010 / Feature / William A. Schwartz
What’s Behind ‘Jar Wars’ What’s Behind ‘Jar Wars’
Abusing drug abuse.
Dec 8, 2010 / Feature / Harry Levine and Craig Reinarman
The Imperiled Presidency? The Imperiled Presidency?
President Obama's not-so-subtle retreats are turning into a rout.
Dec 8, 2010 / Katrina vanden Heuvel
Obama’s Bizarre Celebration of a Slave Republic’s ‘Compromises’ Obama’s Bizarre Celebration of a Slave Republic’s ‘Compromises’
The president said many objectionable things in selling his tax- cut plan, but his assertions about America's history of compromising was too much to stomach.
Dec 8, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Kai Wright
Rockefeller’s Drug Law: Playing Politics with Addiction Rockefeller’s Drug Law: Playing Politics with Addiction
At the start of the new legislative session in January 1973, Nelson Rockefeller introduced a new and aggressive anti-drug law to the residents of New York State. Its aim was "to make the selling or conspiracy to sell hard drugs, the possession or conspiracy to possess large quantities of narcotics and the commission of violent crimes by persons who had ingested hard drugs punishable by the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment." This meant, in practice, that anyone convicted of selling or possessing any quantity of any "narcotic" drug (including marijuana), hallucinogens, amphetamines or depressants, would, if older than 19, be sentenced to prison for the remainder of his or her life. Furthermore, the defendant would not be permitted to plead guilty to a lesser charge, nor be eligible for probation or parole. The bill would also make it a new crime to commit any number of "conventional" offenses after having knowingly ingested one of the unlawful substances, Knowing ingestion was io be presumed if, within forty-eight hours after the crime, traces of a hard drug could be found in the defendant's body. (This despite scientific evidence that many of these substances cannot be detected after as short a time as several hours.) Governor Rockefeller's proposal attempted to make the sanctions for possessing and selling even small quantities of "dangerous" drugs equal to or more severe than those available for seemingly more serious crimes—mur-der, assault, burglary, etc. Although the bill was changed somewhat in its passage through the legislature, it remained a hard-nosed attempt to control drug use and abuse in New York State. Considering the immense amount of research conducted in the United States on drug use, and the almost overwhelming weight of opinion to support the liberalization of drug laws, it is difficult to understand how such a repressive bill could have found backers. However, a brief look at early drug legislation may point to an answer. The first significant federal legislation dealing with the sale and use of narcotics was the Harrison Act of 1914. This had been preceded by the Hague Opium Conference of 1912, at which an international agreement was made to control the traffic in opium and other addicting drugs. The Harrison Act was passed to control the domestic sale and use of opium and coca products through the levying of taxes on them. Despite the fact that it was primarily a revenue measure, it contained exceptionally harsh and punitive penalties. Also included in its provisions were stipulations for registration and maintenance of records by individuals who handled the drugs. Further, it prohibited drug possession by those not registered, except for "legitimate medical purposes." Ostensibly, its purpose was to make drug distribution in this country visible and. thus controllable. There is little indication that its intent was to deprive addicts of legal access to drugs or to interfere with the medical treatment of addicts. Later Supreme Court rulings as to what were "legitimate medical purposes" were responsible for the repressive measures accorded addicts. The cases of Jin Fuey Moy (1920), Webb (1919) and Behrman (1925) sought to impose increasingly strict limits on the sources from which addicts could obtain maintenance doses of narcotics. For example, the Court held in Webb that a legal prescription for maintenance levels of narcotic drugs was not within the parameters of a law which did however allow doctors to prescribe these drugs "in the course of professional treatment." The other cases, essentially refinements of this theme, set further limits on the ability of the medical profession to alleviate the distress of drug users. The extremely harsh implications of these cases were mitigated, nominally, by the Lindner case (1925), in which the Court reiterated that the Harrison Act was intended only as a revenue measure. The Act said nothing about addicts and did not undertake to prescribe methods for their treatment. Although intended as a rule of enlightenment, the effects of this case remained largely symbolic and yielded little to either addicts or their treatment by physicians. When the Harrison Act was passed there were thought to be 400,000 addicts in the United States, many of whom had been inadvertently "turned on" through the use of soothing syrups and painkillers, before these substances were known to be addictive. Prior to the passage of the Act, such persons could buy, legitimately and, inexpensively, the drugs necessary to sustain their habits. "Criminal" addicts were unheard of. The black market in drugs and all the related problems resulted from a law aimed at controlling and decreasing the availability of drugs. Society's ameliorating attempts only aggravated a situation which previously had not existed as a problem. The implication is not that the laws generated addiction; rather, the fault lies in the manner in which they restricted access to the drugs. The Jones-Miller Act was passed in 1922. It, too, was presented as a tax measure, but its extreme penalties—a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for anyone "who fraudulently or knowingly imports or brings any narcotic drugs into the United States…or who buys, sells or facilitates the transportation of any such narcotic drug"—suggest that its principal purpose was not to raise revenue but to deter and harass addicts. Between 1927 and 1932, the Uniform Narcotics Law was prepared by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which had been established under the Treasury Department in 1930. This law was "designed to facilitate enforcement by promoting cooperation between federal and non-federal officers and by creating uniform standards of record keeping." The next federal legislation resulted from the tremendous escalation in narcotics use following World War II. The Boggs bill of 1951 greatly increased the penalties for those convicted of narcotic offenses and in addition made it much easier to obtain convictions. The bill enlarged the penalty from a ten-year maximum to a graduated schedule of penalties, The most severe penalty for a third or subsequent offense was a ten-to-twenty-year sentence, with probation and parole excluded, for sales to adults. If the buyer was a minor, the penalty was ten years to life, again without probation or parole, and with the death penalty applicable if recommended by. the jury. The bill's main assault was upon the small street peddler, since the penalty for first offenses was a mere two-to-ten-years, with both probation and parole possible. Generally, large traffickers are first-time offenders, and the harshness of this law thus fell mainly on the pusher-addict, the least deterrable of all the players in the narcotics racket. By the 1960s the drug problem had become overwhelming, especially in the cities. In 1965 a federal law regulating dangerous drugs was enacted in the form of enforcement to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Administration was to be carried out by the Food and Drug Administration, whose agents were given increased power in an attempt to control the "menace." They were permitted to carry firearms and were accorded search, seizure and arrest powers. The drug control laws in the individual states followed essentially the provisions of the federal statutes. The penalties, however, varied considerably from state to state. The Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act, passed in 1966, was a civil commitment bill which in a variety of ways allowed for the confinement of a "sick" addict for treatment. It was quickly judged a failure due to the fact that the rehabilitation programs closely resembled prison programs and so did little to "cure" addiction. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 embodied both a punitive and a rehabilitative approach to the drug problem. It abolished the extreme mandatory and minimum penalties and made sentencing more flexible by permitting the offender to be placed on probation for medical treatment. In spite of apparent changes, actual government policy has remained much the same since the Webb decision. That it has not worked can be seen in part by the spread of addiction in the past ten years. From 1966 until 1969 the number of federal drug arrests increased from 22,000 to 67,000. Expenditures of police time and effort, money spent on drug education and prevention, and every new form of civil and criminal legislation have failed to solve the problem. The alleged function of the various drug laws: including New York State's Draconian measure, is to deter the use and sale of drugs. They would thus also eliminate the street crime that accompanies illicit drug use. Faith in deterrence assumes the individual's fear of detection and consequent punishment. A study on deterrence has noted that: It is very much a function of the psychologica1"state of the individual, as he perceives the stringency of the penalty and the capacity to have it imposed. If the individual fails to perceive the deterrent or perceiving it remains unimpressed) by it or decided that the risk of incurring it is acceptable or believing the risk to be intolerable, acts anyway, then there can be no deterrence at all. (Goodman, et al., 1966.) While it is frequently assumed that, if penalties were severe enough, drug addiction and drug traffic would disappear, the fact is that attempts to deter addicts by these methods spring largely from the prevailing superficial views on the nature of addiction. A workable definition of addiction is that it begins at that moment when the user no longer takes drugs for pleasure but solely to avoid pain. Ai that point, drug use becomes involuntary and is observable mainly in its absence. The new drug law in New York State fails to distinguish between addicting and nonaddicting drugs. Few threats are sufficient to deter a habituated heroin addict; the "soft," non-addicted drug user may be deterred, although harsh punishment is neither the most efficient nor the most effective way to accomplish the goal. Unlike the addict, the user of LSD and marijuana has the advantage of being able to weigh the risks, and possible consequences of his behavior: the risk of getting caught, against the harshness of the penalties should that occur, Very few people knowingly commit criminal acts expecting to be detected, unless they have previously weighed the risks and decided that the acts are "worth" any potential penalties. If the latter is the case, little if anything would serve as a deterrent. On the other hand, if the individual does not believe he will be caught, the severity of the penalty can have little effect on his decision. Deterrence is also advocated on the assumption that stringent law-enforcement practices insure individual conformity to the law. A footnote in Robinson v. California, a 1960 Supreme Court decision, noted just the opposite: It is the very severity of law enforcement [which] tends to increase the price of drugs on the illicit market and the profits to be made therefrom. The lure of profits and the risks of traffic simply challenge the ingenuity of the underworld to find new channels of distribution. If one believes in the efficacy of harsh penalties as deterrents, the probability of detection and the speed of punishment are essential elements. The certainty of a six-month sentence would have greater deterring force than a possible, but unlikely, life sentence. If an individual does consider the risk involved, the probability of a swift and certain sentence is part of his calculation. The criminal justice process is at present so sluggish that even though criminal acts may eventually be punished, a penalty which is handed down several years in the future can hardly be an effective stop to present criminal behavior. Even the 100 additional judgeships mandated by the new drug law in New York are unlikely to speed up the process. The judicial stage is only one of many steps the defendant must pass through in his processing, and the rest of the system will operate as slowly as ever. The primary thrust of the Rockefeller drug legislation is toward eliminating the visible presence of addiction: street crimes and the small pusher. The importers and wholesalers exist behind the scenes, and although they are the source from which drug traffic flows, their obscurity permits them to seem removed from the process. The more easily discernible pusher is the object of the anger, hatred and fear which the drug problem unleashes. The political expediency of the Rockefeller approach was thus obvious. It helped assuage the white majority of the state's residents, who were thrown into terror by the escalation of the drug "menace." Many black leaders in the state felt that at last something was being done to alleviate a problem which until very recently had been theirs alone. It is interesting in this context to note that it was not until the 1960s, when large number of the white middle class began to view drugs as a personal problem, that anything at all was done. On its face, the drug legislation is aimed at eliminating the upper ranks of the drug world as well as the street people; as it stands it will not succeed in that respect. The big dealers are physically detached from the actual maneuverings and manipulations of the drugs, and it is only through physical contact with drugs that convictions will be obtained. The legislation does contain a clause for conviction for conspiracy to sell, but conspiracy convictions are notoriously difficult to sustain. Even if it were possible to get at the present importers, hope of complete and total deterrence is an illusion. The profits are so high and the risks so minimal that there would be a steady flow of those eager to step in and fill any existing voids in the trafficking. Diversion, not deterrence, would be the outcome. There are, other difficulties with this legislation. Not only may the law fail as a deterrent;, it may well exacerbate the situation. If the usual channels for moving drugs are closed, new ones will be opened. The drug traffic will not cease, but its base of operations may be forced to relocate. Foreseeing this problem, the Governor of Connecticut urged that a bill mandating the death penalty be adopted for twice-convicted narcotic peddlers. However, changing the locale of drug operations will neither alleviate the problem nor please the communities into which the operators move. If the legislation has even a minuscule effect as a deterrent, and thereby decreases the quantity of drugs on the street, the results could be disastrous. The demand for heroin is inelastic and will not be reduced by diminished availability. However, a decrease in the supply will skyrocket the price. In order to satisfy his need, an addict will be forced to turn still more often to the easiest and most profitable source of money—street crime. The provision for harsher penalties for those convicted of violent crimes while under the influence of drugs is unlikely to have a deterrent effect on either drug use or violent crime. Even employing what appears to be one of the law's basic assumptions, it makes little sense. If drug addicts and users are incompetent, morally irresponsible individuals, it is difficult to understand the rationale for punishing them for deeds which they are incapable of controlling. Punishing an individual for something over which he has little or no control is not likely to inculcate a sense of respect for the law. Indeed, it smacks of retribution, an argument for punishment that is at present out of favor. Predicating more stringent penalties on the belief that drug ingestion leads to more violent crime has questionable value as a deterrent. The evidence does not support this theory. Furthermore, American criminal law stipulates that the penalty must be based on the act, rather than on the condition of the user. It would be difficult to imagine the justification for the increased penalty other than as a retributive measure. Inequitable and excessively harsh penalties often cause people to regard the law as unjust. Thus juries may become reluctant to convict. A final aspect of the new drug law merits mention. The, bill authorizes a reward of $1,000 to be paid to persons who provide information leading to the apprehension and conviction of hard drug pushers. It must be noted that the application of this provision to the hard drug pusher alone assumes a belief that heroin and the other addicting drugs are the source of the urban crime problem, and thus the primary focus of the law. Appending LSD, marijuana and other soft drugs to the legislation was for effect only. It was, therefore, a dramatic appeal, based on the promulgated belief that users of these non-addicting substances are a threat to the established order. The soft drug users are to be hounded not so much for their behavior—drug use, sales or possession. They are to be hounded for being what they are—people who have a predilection toward using drugs, in a manner similar to those who use alcohol or even tobacco. The bounty aspect of the drug law will certainly not deter the wholesalers and importers, who are protected by a complicated network of "front men." For several reasons, it is unlikely that this provision will deter addicts or pushers either. If an addict attempts to turn in a pusher, a report of his activity is certain to be circulated. It will, thereafter, be difficult if not impossible for him to obtain drugs, since few would risk selling to him. Desperate as this individual may be for the cash reward, it is unlikely that he would be willing to jeopardize his future supply. It is also conceivable that a pusher may be inclined to turn in a fellow pusher, either for the reward, or to rid himself of competition. If this did in fact occur, the crime problem would only escalate. A decrease in the total number of peddlers would enable those remaining to become more selective in their dealings and to charge higher prices. The addicts would be forced to increase their criminal activities in order to meet the higher prices. Thus, in all its particulars the new drug law seeks to deter addiction and the ancillary street crime in a fashion a that is likely to aggravate an already mammoth problem. What it does not and cannot do is decrease or eliminate the need for drugs. At present, however, much of the above is speculation. For all its inclusive measures, the legislation notably lacks any evaluative provisions. Only through evaluation and research can its deterrent claims be substantiated or proved false. Several private foundations have recently embarked upon evaluative studies, but the law is so new and the studies so recent that little information has as yet been collected. The Division of Criminal Justice Services is the department in the state machinery responsible for statistical information on criminal activity. It has published two quarterly reports which have some gross data on drug arrests. The reports show that in New York City drug arrests have fallen off; during the same time period drug arrests have risen upstate. The report makes no attempt to explain this development, but various interpretations are possible. One is that the law is in fact working as a deterrent in the city. Fewer people are using drugs, therefore fewer are eligible for arrest or are in fact arrested. A more likely interpretation involves law-enforcement patterns, and it is supported by another piece of information. A lawyer involved in the ABA-Vera Foundation evaluation noted that in New York City marijuana arrests are up, while heroin arrests have dropped. There is speculation that the police are making the easier arrests. Rather than going after heroin dealers, who are more likely to resist, since they have more to lose, the police arrest the soft drug users who are an easier mark for police tactics. Unfortunately, it is much too soon to judge the significance of the data. It will be several years before the full ramifications of the new law can be understood and the efficacy of the law determined. A deterrent does not have to be a legal mandate; it may be anything that inhibits the activity at which it is aimed. And in the realm of criminal deterrence, punishments, whether moral or legal, are not the only possibilities. Such things as economic aid, special educational advantages and other positive action might take the place of the usual punitive deterrents—which, in the case of drug abuse, have been directed primarily toward the users. Other tactics could be employed. For example, there have been few attacks on those who supply the dealer with the paraphernalia he needs to sustain his business. The large companies which manufacture glassine envelopes have a production rate that far exceeds the demands of philatelists. Quinine also has at present little use except for the dilution of heroin. Few if any governmental attempts have been made to inhibit the production of these commodities, even though it is known that their major use is by the illicit drug industry. A more drastic step would be to legalize heroin. It could then be dispensed free at clinics, or purchased without controls at drugstores. The British dispensing program has not been entirely free of trouble, but in England virtually no street crime is associated with the drug problem. Thomas Szasz, in an article published prior to the Rockefeller announcement, pointed out that to support addicts in their habit would be much less expensive than all the preventive and rehabilitative programs now employed: During the 1969-70 fiscal year, NACC had a budget of nearly $50 million, excluding capital construction. Using these figures as a tentative base for calculating, here is what we come to: $100 million will support 30,000 addicts at $3,300 per year. It seems, then, that it might be cheaper to support legions of addicts than to attempt to cure or punish them. The fiscal appropriations suggested in the new law make the expenditures for drug control totally unrealistic. The economic burden imposed on the residents of New York State would far exceed any potential.deterrent value. For example, the, 1974-75 state budget allocates a whopping $197.3 million for its various drug-control programs. When one considers that the total budget for the state is $9.8 billion, that is an enormous chunk. Thus, one might ask not if drug use can be deterred, but should it be, if the expense is so great? Immediately upon announcement of the Rockefeller anti-drug proposal, critics and advocates embarked on their respective courses of denunciation and praise. After several months of hot debate, the bill was passed in a special summer session of the New York State legislature. It went into effect in September 1973 and was launched with tremendous media coverage. Radio and TV stations ran spot commercials, and newspapers carried full-page ads, all exhorting people to turn themselves in to the NACC centers to avoid prosecution. The state seemed committed to proving to its residents that it meant business. One hundred new judgeships were authorized to expedite the anticipated horde of new drug cases—although as of the present budget, money has been provided for less than half of these posts. The bill has been somewhat amended since its inception to include a specific schedule of penalties for given quantities of drugs. An important change in the final version stressed the imposition of a life sentence, rather than life imprisonment. Public outcry had forced the withdrawal of mandatory life imprisonment. However, life parole is hardly something to look forward to. As Rockefeller pointed out, a parolee can do nothing with his life—get married, for example—without the permission of his parole officer. A little known fact is that this latest drug legislation was unnecessary from the standpoint of criminal justice. Many of the "new" sanctions were already available to prosecutors and judges, although in somewhat different form. For example, it was already possible to impose life imprisonment on anyone convicted of a Class A felony. While this did not apply specifically or solely to drug offenders, it could and had been applied to them. Second, extremely, harsh penalties for drug crimes already existed in the New York State statutes. However, they had little deterrent effect because of problems of detection, enforcement and conviction—the same problems that plague the new law. While state law-enforcement agencies and NACC were busy decrying the evils of drug use, they were at the same time promulgating the concept that drug abuse is a treatable disease. This mode of attack would give the state additional powers over those possibly not qualifying for long-term incarceration under the criminal codes. Individuals not otherwise eligible for prison could conceivably qualify for civil commitment at one of the state-operated treatment centers. Immediately before the bill was passed, NACC had been eager to supply hints on ways to obtain entry into the treatment facilities. It was, however, silent on procedures leading to release. In a separate provision, the new bill sought additional funds for increased treatment facilities. This seemed particularly incredible, in light of the acknowledged failures of the past. By the state's own figures, and in the Governor's own words, these centers have been spectacularly unsuccessful in fulfilling their promise of rehabilitation. Not only had drug use risen out of proportion to the rate of population increase since the 1966 declaration of "war on drugs," but the recidivism rate of "cured" drug users is phenomenally high. The, conclusion to be drawn is quite clear: the aim of the Rockefeller drug legislation cannot be to deter drug use or its related crimes. What then was its purpose? It is easy and all too obvious to ascribe to Rockefeller "political motivations" for introducing such legislation. Perhaps it is not so much a question of "Why did he do, it?" as "How was he able to do it?' To answer that, we must, as Wilhelm Reich suggested, search the heart of Everyman.
Dec 8, 2010 / Feature / Carol Trilling
What Elizabeth Edwards Did for the Antiwar Movement What Elizabeth Edwards Did for the Antiwar Movement
When one of the most prominent women in America embraced Cindy Sheehan's demand that George Bush listen to antiwar voices, it mattered.
Dec 8, 2010 / John Nichols
LSD: Research & Joy Ride LSD: Research & Joy Ride
LSD 25 , an indole derivative from ergot, was synthesized by Hoffman in 1938, but for a good many years little attention was paid to the drug. Then, within the past year or two, interest in this psychedelic or "mind manifesting" drug has soared among both professionals and the lay public. LSD has been widely publicized in nonmedical publications, a number of sociologic studies exist, and a journal has been founded to report experiences resulting from its use. Three different approaches to LSD have been described and studied to date. The first is the experimental administration of the drug in controlled laboratory setting, a record being kept of subjective and/or objective effects. Initially the so-called "model psychoses" induced by LSD were compared with schizophrenia and with delirium. However, this method of comparative study has proved to be somewhat disappointing. The second aspect of study has been the psychotherapeutic use of LSD to increase awareness, lift repressions and facilitate insight during psychotherapy LSD is also used for treatment of specific disorders such as alcoholism. The third type of study, and the one which concerns us most, has to do with the psychiatric side effects that follow ingestion of LSD. Most of this study is concerned with self-administered doses of the drug. The side effects occur regardless of the sources of the drug and regardless of the setting in which it has been administered, but far more LSD is bought on the black market (it is either imported illegally from Mexico or produced locally by amateur chemists) than is given experimentally or psychotherapeutically. LSD obtained on the street often contains a number of impurities; sometimes other compounds (among them atropine) are sold allegedly as LSD. Black market doses, usually diluted as they are passed on, contain an unknown number of micrograms of LSD. Psychiatrists throughout the country have been observing increasing numbers of severe side effects from the drug over the past seven or eight months. (An excellent early personal account of a "bad trip" from LSD was "They Split My Personality" by Harry Asher, Saturday Review, June 1, 1963.) At the UCLA Medical Center, approximately one psychiatric disorder associated with LSD ingestion had been turning up every other month. However, beginning in September of 1965, the figure jumped to between five and fifteen cases a month. Other local facilities in the Los Angeles area have reported a similar increase. The new Federal Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965, which went into effect on February 1, have had no apparent effect in decreasing the number of LSD cases seen in our psychiatric emergency room. About one-third of the LSD cases at UCLA have required admission to the psychiatric hospital; approximately half of these to the ward on which the authors work. In addition, we have conducted group therapy sessions once a week for several months among all the hospitalized LSD patients whose doctors would permit them to attend. The purpose was to learn what reactions these patients had experienced and to become acquainted with the patients themselves. The LSD users who come to the hospital are primarily young, single, Caucasian, male; few are religious. They live throughout the Los Angeles area, but particularly in the Hollywood section and the beach cities. Most of them are unemployed, but some are students. Many of our patients had used other drugs besides LSD, particularly marijuana; some had taken LSD as often as sixty times. These people came to the emergency room suffering from confusion, anxiety, depression, suspiciousness and hallucinations. During this study we became curious about the overall LSD population. Were we seeing atypical reactions or were others reacting the same way to LSD but not being brought into the hospital? As word spread of our interest, informants began to appear at the hospital. They told us of other LSD users in the community and of their aberrant behavior. We heard about people wandering about in chronic states of confusion, and the psychiatrists on duty at the hospital received many phone calls about threatened or already attempted suicides and other disturbed behavior. Many of these people refused to come in to the hospital. We then began to go out into the community and attended a number of LSD sessions held in private homes or "pads." We observed what we would consider obvious psychotlc behavior: suspiciousness, grimacing, inappropriate affect, apparent hallucinations and motor restlessness. These affects seemed eventually to wear off and the patients we saw did not apparently harm themselves that day. We heard about others who had had unpleasant symptoms or utterly lost contact, and then recovered only to have these symptoms return weeks or months later without their having taken LSD again. Besides these acute difficulties, there are other, more chronic problems. For one thing, LSD seems to affect a person's value system. We have found that in many instances formerly productive individuals have adopted the attitude that one should live merely for subjective experiences, and not play the various "games"—like work—that society demands. We have met this attitude in musicians, lawyers, psychologists and doctors. Since many people who experience this change of attitude are never seen by psychiatrists, one can only speculate as to its frequency. Another chronic difficulty is perceptual distortion. For example, a band leader phoned us because his players were producing such terrible music. Nor could he talk to them, for they were on LSD and utterly convinced that the band was playing the most beautiful music ever heard. A law student told us that LSD had given him such new insight and opened such horizons that he felt his legal studies were dull and boring by comparison. He speculated at length about the advisability of giving the world's leaders LSD so that they would love and not hate. At last contact he had not decided whether to pursue his law studies or to continue with LSD full time. We have observed this degree of subjective distortion among many LSD users. A group of them whom we studied fairly intensively over several months were convinced that they could "pick up vibrations" from other people, that they could tell if someone else had used LSD by casual inspection, that they had a keen awareness of music and art. Nevertheless, objective tests showed that their ability to discriminate was below normal, and that their powers of observation had been actually decreased by LSD. At various community dances which we attended, the young girls were in their "psychedelic slacks" and the teenage boys wore long hair and sunglasses. They moved beneath undulating lights in bright "psychedelic" colors. At such gatherings the drug seemed to replace personal contact and to substitute for the drives of sex and aggression. We watched seven or eight sailors dancing with one girl on the floor. There was little male-female awareness or physical contact; each was in his own fantasy world. The criteria for mental health, according to Freud, are the ability to work and to love, and LSD users seem to deteriorate in those very areas. We have already mentioned the numerous individuals we have studied who have either lost their jobs or lost the incentive to work after using LSD. The ability to love, that is to have psychic intimacy with another person, seems also to be decreased by LSD. In contradiction to the claim that the drug helps one to get closer to people, we note that users become more introspective and invested in themselves. The extreme results are autism and psychosis. Advocates of LSD have maintained that proper screening techniques would enable one to predict individual reactions to LSD and to eliminate those who would have "bad trips." Our experience at UCLA indicates that such predictions are extremely unreliable. We know of patients who, though carefully screened for research purposes, suffered severe LSD reactions, with dramatic alterations of their value systems, resulting in a diminished level of functioning. On the other hand, we have come across members of the community whom we would have judged fairly unstable but who showed little or no change after using LSD. The number of high school students and teen-agers who take the drug is increasing rapidly. Most adolescents are struggling with feelings of aggression and sexuality, along with their need to establish an identity. LSD can seem a "magic" solution to such problems. It offers a ready-made identity with fellow users and the introspective experience helps to deny the feelings of both aggression and sexuality. Their conversation becomes "acid head" talk. Bad "trips" are "freak." Every stranger is "the man" (police) and to talk to one would be to "cop-out" (squeal). Suspicion to the point of paranoia is common. The adolescent is frequently overwhelmed by the LSD experience, with the result that the search for identity becomes a florid psychotic nightmare. There is perhaps no period of life more loaded with conflict, and one might therefore expect that adolescents who took LSD would experience severe complications, including panic states, prolonged psychosis and severe depressions. Another disturbing aspect of LSD usage is the missionary zeal it seems to induce in many of its users. We have no doubt that the enthusiasm is sincere, since we have come upon cases of mothers who have given LSD to their children, brothers who have encouraged their sisters to take it, and many individuals who have selected their closest friends and used every means possible to convince them that they too should share in the world of psychedelia. In several instances, individuals have devoted a great deal of their energies to buying LSD and passing it out free among the population in an attempt to "save the world." The right environment for taking LSD (often alluded to by acid heads as necessary for a good trip) means having a "sitter" to guide you through the LSD state. However, neither a favorable environment nor a guide guarantees a pleasant or meaningful experience. If the trip goes bad, and LSD users are brought to a medical facility in the acute phase, tranquilizers and barbiturates will help most of them, but not all. Many of our hospitalized patients have remained in the hospital for more than a month. Until more is known about LSD and its short- and long-term effects, it must be considered a very dangerous drug. Unfortunately, the ready market for and easy manufacture of the drug have resulted in an almost unlimited black market supply, and the buyers are often the very people who have the most to lose from its use. We certainly hope that LSD research will be continued,. but we appeal to those who loudly proclaim that "everyone" should take LSD to remember the highly subjective response to the drug. We have known the most ardent enthusiasts to become the most eloquent opponents—often after just one bad experience. The controversy continues to rage, some investigators maintaining that side effects are frequent, others stating that the potential gains far outweigh possible side effects. We are worried by what we have seen. California and other states are now considering legislation to supplement existing federal legislation; Sandoz Laboratories, the principal legitimate source, has discontinued manufacture. The future of LSD remalns controversial and uncertain.
Dec 8, 2010 / Feature / Dr. J. Thomas Ungerleider and Dr. Duke D. Fisher
Drugs on Campus: Turned On & Tuned Out Drugs on Campus: Turned On & Tuned Out
Within the last five years the ingestion of various drugs has become widespread on the American campus. Until recently, drugs were used almost exclusively by those clearly out of step with conventional American life Prior to 1960, also, the taking of drugs implied physiological addiction, heroin being the substance most used. An exception was marijuana. Certain groups in Los Angeles and New York, many of them actors and writers, smoked pot without deleterious physiological effects or interference with their professional activities. However, marijuana was very rarely found on college campuses Physiologically addictive drugs are still almost unknown on campus, but there are now few colleges and universities where marijuana and the new psychedelic drugs, chiefly LSD, are not consumed. On even the most provincial of campuses a student who has flipped out as a result of taking LSD is likely to turn up at the counseling center, or a few students may be expelled for smoking pot in a dormitory. This is not to say that the proportion of students who take drugs is high. Most college students are conventional and dutiful, and are unlikely to contravene acceptable standards of behavior in so serious a way. But on campuses where cosmopolitan students congregate—large city campuses or prestigious small liberal arts colleges—the proportion of students who experiment with pot or LSD may run as high as 10 per cent. This is not a large proportion, but the total numbers are considerable. In a student body of 15,000, for example, but 2 per cent is 300 students—a figure not easily ignored. And the number of drug takers is growing. It is difficult to fashion a serious case against smoking marijuana except that a user will find himself in serious trouble if he is caught by the police. The effects on society at large, were pot smoking to be as ubiquitous as the consumption of alcohol, are unknown, but within the current limits of use, there is little evidence that marijuana damages the individuals who smoke it. However, once a student has stepped over the line and finds that nothing terrible has happened, it is easy to fall into the illusion that there are no dangers at all. Occasionally a person of somewhat precarious emotional stability may be thrown into a panic state or even a psychosis as a result of smoking pot, but this seldom happens. Similarly, there is little basis for asserting that pot smoking is often a prelude to self-destructive or socially damaging acts. No data exist, for example, to demonstrate that marijuana contributes significantly to an individual’s criminal tendencies. Perhaps the most serious charge that may be made against pot is that it is psychologically damaging. Since it is officially banned, its use reinforces rebellious and anti-social tendencies. Individuals who smoke pot regularly—as opposed to those who experiment with it on one or a few occasions—are likely to scoff at such a remark. Divorced as they are from traditional American culture and society, they are hardly frightened by the prospect of further alienation. Indeed, they are apt to welcome it. The consistent pot smokers are for the most part graduate students in the arts, philosophy, the humanities and, to some extent, in the social sciences. The rebellion they express in many ways, pot smoking among them, stems from their disillusion with American life and values. They oppose American intervention in Vietnam, they are angered by the lot of Negroes and other disadvantaged minority groups. And they are militant. Aside from enjoying pot’s intrinsic satisfactions—relaxation, heightened sensibility, etc.—these students get pleasure from sharing a rebellious, illegal activity. The more rebellious or "anti" the movement, the greater the likelihood that pot smokers will be drawn to it. On the other hand, the use of marijuana is rare in the Peace Corps and Poverty Corps. Even though these workers may oppose traditional policies and politics, their activities are more a gesture of social affirmation than of protest. On any cosmopolitan campus today or in any large city, a student can easily buy marijuana or a psychedelic drug. About eighty psychedelic or consciousness-expanding substances have been identified in the Western world—morning glory seeds, peyote, psilocybin, are among the more prominent—but LSD, the most powerful, has preempted the field. Because of its shadowy status, it has often been easier to obtain than the clearly illegal marijuana. Revisions of federal drug laws will alter the status of LSD, but at least in the near future there is little likelihood that pot or acid will be in short supply. Connections, sometimes students, often ex-students, are easy to find. The going rate is $5 for an LSD capsule. And for many users one capsule is good for two "trips." You dissolve it in a glass of water and drink half the glass each time. Although the takers of marijuana and LSD overlap, these drugs have assumed quite different meanings for the students who ingest them. Pot smoking is likely to be a relaxing, convivial affair. On occasion, one may in the course of smoking marijuana undergo profound experiences, mystical or self-revelatory, but few pot enthusiasts would claim that it initiated one into life’s mysteries. Devotees of LSD, on the other hand, have surrounded the ingestion of this substance with a mystique, with cults, with rituals. Some students claim that LSD experiences provide deep insights. They have seen themselves with a clear eye, stripped of the usual defenses and artifices which ordinarily hedge perception. A better self, an ideal self, may be envisioned. New powers are made available to them, intense mystical or religious experiences occur. However, not all ingestions of LSD result in revelatory trips. Sometimes nothing happens. Other times, reaction may be limited to minor perceptual distortion. The setting in which LSD is taken considerably influences the effect. For some students an LSD trip is a profound personal experience; for others it becomes a religion, a way of life. These two kinds of LSD enthusiasm —the profound personal experience versus the way of life—tend to divide on the frequency of dosage. Students for whom LSD has not become a way of life probably have experienced only a few LSD trips—three or four perhaps, spaced at intervals of several months. LSD experience is likely to contribute to their alienation. They see so very clearly the falsity of the material values that dominate Western society, they have experienced true love—they know what the word love means; they have reconciled the conflicts which plague Western man, and so on. And these experiences have spurred them on to rebel all the more vehemently against conventional American life and politics. When LSD becomes a religion or a way of life, students take it more frequently—once a week perhaps, or even more often. And when this occurs, a student is likely to leave school. A number of large universities now have groups or cults of LSD devotees who live in the vicinity. Most of the members are ex-students. These people are turned on to their inner world, their internal experience. The external world is tuned out. They do little of anything except observe. They are great nature lovers. They will journey to places of unusual natural beauty, turn on with LSD, and look. They work spasmodically, when funds are needed, but otherwise are inactive. The preoccupations of most people—educational, professional, political—are "games" to them. There is the "Vietnam-administration game," the "student-administration game," the "Hitler- Jewish game," the "McCarthy-ADA game," and the like. Their living conditions often become squalid. The truth has been revealed to them. They are in tune with infinity, and anyone who is hung up on involvement with experiences or activities of the external world is dismissed as a square. Communication between these votaries of LSD and squares is limited. Because so much of what occurs during an LSD trip is nonverbal, little can be reported. And "what the word cannot say, the mind cannot know." LSD enthusiasts talk of religious conversions, the awakening of artistic creativity, the reconciliation of opposites. The main change to be observed in such individuals, however, is that they have given up doing anything. The aspiring painter talks of the heightening of his aesthetic sensibilities and skills, but he has stopped painting. The graduate student who withdrew from writing his dissertation in philosophy talks of the wondrous philosophical theories he evolved. But nothing is written. It seems that the world of fantasy has become far more compelling than the world of involvement with external things. Indeed, fantasy is substituted for reality. If one has dreamed the idea of a great novel, the work of actually writing it becomes a drag. Much has been made of the psychological perils of LSD. They are real enough. In San Francisco or New York one could doubtless track down a hundred or more cases of people who had been rendered psychotic as a result of a dose ot LSD. Each student health service, psychiatric clinic, emergency service of a general hospital, would yield a number of such cases. Most of these episodes are of short duration. For each instance of an individual’s flipping out, there are several of panic reaction to an LSD experience. Tranquilizers will terminate the physiological effects of LSD in such instances. Most of these reactions occur when LSD is taken in unfavorable settings—alone in a room or in somewhat uncongenial company. Probably more serious is the impairment of judgment that may accompany an LSD trip. It is often difficult to determine the duration of the experience. Individuals whose customary judgment is still somewhat impaired may be driving cars, teaching classes, or making decisions about important family matters. The long-range physiological results of such a powerful stress reaction as an LSD experience are unknown. Evidence seems to be mounting that repeated ingestions of LSD may have permanent or enduring adverse effects. The semi-dazed quality displayed by some individuals who are on LSD a good part of the time may be physiological in origin, at least in part. It is unlikely that one or several ingestions of LSD will have enduring physiological effects, but definitive data on this score are not yet at hand. It is in quietism, however, that the chief danger of LSD lies. An affluent and complex society can easily afford small groups of people whose chief commitment is to their internal processes and their fantasy worlds. But what if there were many such? It is ironic that the military establishments of both Russia and the United Stales, the very groups that epitomize all the devotees of consciousness expansion most oppose, are experimenting with LSD—as a weapon, of course. A population that is turned on will make no trouble. It will be easy prey for the conqueror. LSD zealots ignore the realities of power—unlike Mahatma Gandhi or William Blake, mystics who were committed to the human and social struggle. LSD is unquestionably of potential value in various forms of psychotherapy. It may be used, for example, to shatter the habitual modes of reaction of people with strong fixations—alcoholics, recidivist criminals, compulsives, and others—so that they may evolve new ways of coping with the world and of living with themselves. And undoubtedly psychedelic experiences have entailed for some people profound personal insights and mystical and spiritual experiences. These powers are to be taken seriously. It is more difficult to take LSD seriously as a religion or a way of life. The notion that in 3 to 6 hours one may painlessly attain to the wisdom that Buddha achieved over a period of years seems ludicrous. The LSD grab bag of philosophy compounded out of Zen, Fromm , existentialism, Aldous Huxley, Jung, et al., is an unlikely guide to action in a complex society. The description of a person as "He's loving" (the ultimate compliment), as if somehow one could touch this entity of love, is right out of adolescent fantasy. Above all, the absence of a tragic sense makes LSD as a religion or way of life no more applicable to the richness of human experience than any other simplistic religion. Yet the phenomenon of psychedelic experience as a religion or way of life should not be written off. What attracts several hundreds of the brightest and most aware of American youth to psychedelic experience and makes zealots of them? Why are many thousands of other youths eager to undergo this experience? The answers are, of course, many and varied. Transcendentalism and the search for utopia are hardly new to American life. There is, however, an urgency to the quest by many young people for new values that deserves the most serious regard. The brightest and most sensitive of college youth are examining the values of the Western world, and are finding them wanting. There is an upsurge of interest in introspection and in the life of the emotions. There is great concern with people rather than with things. Questions of ethics and morality are on their minds as perhaps never before in American life—not since the Civil War, at any rate. And their education is not meeting these interests. The things that are most important to many young Americans are not being discussed in academic life. The sterile formalism of much American higher education can hardly hold a candle to the psychedelic experience. Similarly, many youths are turning away in disgust from American society. Injustices that were once accepted lightly—the situation of the Negro, for example—are now a source of pain. A war in Vietnam of most ambiguous morality cannot be easily tolerated. A society which expends enormous wealth on orbiting space ships, the occupants of which can talk to each other only by recourse to locker-room banter, seems almost unendurable. The interest of many students in drug experience may not be dismissed simply as a sign of delinquency, rebelliousness or psychological pathology. It represents a search for a new way of life. It indicates needs and desires that American society and education do not now meet or fill. There is a quality of naïveté in this quest by students. Wholeness, joy, wisdom or love are not likely to emerge from a few hours that are spent under the influence of a chemical. The interest in drug experience informs us, however, that American society and education are doing little to contribute to the richness of life that students sense can be theirs.
Dec 8, 2010 / Feature / Mervin B. Freedman and Harvey Powelson
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