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Dangerous drugs...
against dangerous thoughts

By JAMES JACKSON

They are shooting at your mind, Baby! »
hey wants you to dream crazy instead
of thinking straight. They wants to treak
Y©U out and lose you on bad trips, Baby,
80 you won't know where the pain
Some trom.
_ When you pick up the needle, it just
like the Pig drawing out his gun. Putting
the needle in your arm is like a pig put- .
ting a bullet in your brain. Because with

that “horse’’ running wild through your

brain and your veins, man, you don’t
have the power fo hold your ownself
4P tight, much less help get power to
the People and put the man on our back
'n the sack. A revolutionary who picks up

© needle is as well as dead. At least so
far as tixing the world is concerned. The
®nly thing an addict is bent-on tixing is
himseit,

Neeetic addiction and drug abuse
“ among the young generation -has
fached the proportions of an epidemic.
“€cently in New York the funeral of a 12-
Year-old victim of heroin main-lining was

jftried on TV. The drug death of a bril-

ia Barnard College’ studert further
liven atizes the shocking toll in young
ae and national dishonor which the
fee ats of the drug pushers is exact-

we ug abuse — neither in this country
om In the world at large — is a new phen-
ncn Indeed, it was known in Galen’s
wis, Some four thousand years ago. Per-
“ Peasants chew coco leaves to mask
T hunger pangs and India’s toilers
bee betal nuts for the same reason.
hin ree thousand years some people in
the @ abused their bodies with the fruit of
yee flower. In Tom Jones’ and
* n Victoria’s England, Sir Arthur
dip 4n Doyle’s hero Sherlock Holmes
ie Cocaine. What then is so special
Bee swe current craze of drug indul-
‘ €* What is unique and horrible about
Sed widespread proselytizing is
Et has all the aspects of being delib-
ely Politically motivated. :
Ounting evidence raises the suspi-
that a morally degenerate, mad-
and fearful ruling class has calcu-
ly sought to turn-off the rebellion of
Suth, to divert the focus of the young
ants from the crimes of their system
Ulling their minds and weakening
bodies with drugs.
the Devt: in his classical history of
bi €cline and Fall of the Roman Em-

* T€counts how that ruling class im-~~
etal ecard botiall -

Cion
deneg

the y
lit
yd
their

ported drugs and encouraged will-weak-
ening and diversionary perverse practices
among the lower classes in vain hopes of
aborting the internal class contradictions
of the deepening general crisis of the
empire. :

The syndicates of gangster-capital-
ists — acting under the ‘‘benign neglect”
government policies — are functioning as
a ‘‘special force’’.in the war of the ruling
Class against the young guard of their
class opponents. They are waging chemi-
cal wartare against the minds of the.
young generation!

Waslfhgton can step-up illegal sur-
veillance of critics of the Nixon-Agnew’
syndicate. It can inspire murderous po-
lice raids in the night against the homes

‘and offices of the youthful Black Panther

Party. Agnew can give his blessings to the
outrageous nullification of justice handed
down in the Chicago Seven case, but
Washington has not checked in the slight-
est degree the plague of dangerous ad-
diction producing the death-dealing drugs
which is being peddled to the children and
youth of the country.

’ The Nixon government like its predé-
cessor continues a priorities system
which plunges tens of billions of the tax-
payer’s dollars in the dirty war insanity
of killing Vietnamese, leaving little or
nothing for investment in measures to pro-
tect the lives and safeguard the health of,

our youth.
@

Cynically appealing to the anti-estab-
lishment mood of the youth, the drug
pushers and their criminal theorists like
Dr. Timothy Leary, urge them to make
their protest against capitalism by “‘drop-
ping out”’ of the system; by erasing them-
selves from the equation by sailing above
it all on the gossamer wings of soft mari-
juana smoke and hard horse shots.

A government that could absorb the
disclosure of the Mylai massacre without
a flicker of remorse or word of regret
can and does also absorb the almost in-
‘comprehensible data of the extent. of the
drug addiction problem of a whole seg-

qnent of the young people of this country.
The government’s war in Vietnam de-
stroys, along with Vietnamese villages,
vast sums needed to undertake an effec-
tive drive against addiction. The problem
is made more serious and extensive by

_ the many thousands of GIs returning from

Vietnam with newly acquired habits for
hashish and hard drugs.

There is an old truism in pharmacol-
ogy and toxicology that every drug is a
potential poison and every poison Is a

potential drug. An aspect of the truth of
this statement is revealed in the wide
range of specific preparations used:.in
drug-abuse practices by those with a hab-
it. The most commonly used dangerous
drug outside of alcoholic liquors is mari-
juana, hemp, hashish. the dried leaves of
the plant Cannabis Sativa.

The major current addiction problem
inthe country is related to the use of
1. the cpiate group of narcotic drugs.
2. the barbiturates — a group of powerful
sedative drugs. and 3. the stimulant group
of drugs. the amphetamines. “speed.”
etc.. and. 4. the ‘‘mind-blowing.” hallu-
cinogenic group of drugs—LSD and other
lysergic acid mixtures. Pevote, etc.

The most lethal single weapon in the
arsenal of chemical warfare against the
minds and bodies of the voung is heroin.

Diagnosis of heroin addiction is made
on the basis of physical examination and
observation aided by an acquaintance
with the case ristorvy of the patient. What-
ever previous personality disorder ob-
tained before the addiction to the drug is
considerably. aggravated with the habit
established: The Bureau of Narcctics
Commissioner has ccmmented that as a
group ‘addicts are lacking in frustration
tolerance. are dependent and adept at
manipulating those about them in rela-
tion to their addiction.”

Addiction to heroin and to other opi-
ates has the characteristics of a chronic
relapsing disease — withdrawal is. the
least complex part of the treatment; suc-
cess or failure, therefore, must not be
measured solely by one or more relapses.

The Bureau of Narcotics pamphlet No.
56 declares quite unqualifiedly that “‘All
addicted persons including those under
confinement should be given humane med-
ical withdrawal under medical supervi-
sion. There is no excuse for the so-called
cold turkey treatment.’’ The withdrawal

drug of choice is Methadone, usually ad-~

ministered in oral doses in liquid form
over a period of ten days or two weeks.
After the withdrawal process, the patient
should have a therapeutic program for
from six months to a year. Effective re-
habilitation programs require changes in
the environment — social and economic
improvements as well as psychiatric aid.

It is an international scandal, the fact
of the scornful neglect by the local, state
and federal governments of the need of
providing adequate institutional settings
— hospitals, rehabilitation homes, and
communes, social and medical service
staffs to really make progress toward wip-
ing out this scourge of drug addiction.

—Reprint from U.S. Daily World

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 3, 1970—Page 5