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Transcript: Drug Abuse: The Chemical Tomb

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00:00:34 #1 enchanted with the world around them. While they may for the most part be outside the

00:00:39 #2 mainstream of American life of the wave of the future, Mr. defines the word more at once.

00:01:06 #3 Seldom has a nation been able to witness such an explosion, a new mass mine, a nowness as

00:01:12 #4 it takes place. Today, we are seeing it. The bobbysocks and ice cream sodas is gone.

00:01:37 #5 These people no longer feel constrained by the social rules of the past.

00:01:42 #6 They are better read and more concerned about all people and all cultures.

00:01:49 #7 An older generation could learn about fresh thinking from them.

00:01:54 #8 Their energy is boundless.

00:01:56 #9 They play hard, but they are also involved.

00:02:00 #10 They are free thinking for the most part and not afraid to voice their criticisms.

00:02:06 #11 As many more of them have simply dropped out, they have made what they consider their own

00:02:12 #12 peace with America, and they're now involved in finding out who they are.

00:02:18 #13 Discovering the inner man cannot be minimized, but a nation in turmoil needs the bigger,

00:02:24 #14 the newness of a young.

00:02:27 #15 This exploration, this search for new values, has led into a new and dangerous area, the

00:02:35 #16 use of narcotics and hallucinogens.

00:02:38 #17 The brain, the body, indeed the freedom to do,

00:02:41 #18 can be so jeopardized by these drugs

00:02:45 #19 that new politics, more realistic values,

00:02:48 #20 and a meaningful, less materialistic society

00:02:51 #21 may never have the opportunity of becoming a reality.

00:02:56 #22 The turned-on people who seem to set many of today's

00:02:59 #23 lifestyles are not the only ones smoking grass,

00:03:03 #24 popping benes, shooting speed, or dropping acid.

00:03:07 #25 If they were, the problem would be somewhat less tragic.

00:03:11 #26 These practices have spread to colleges, high schools,

00:03:15 #27 and even elementary schools.

00:03:17 #28 The students are being exposed to drugs

00:03:20 #29 that many of them believe are without lasting physiological

00:03:23 #30 or mental effects.

00:03:24 #31 On the contrary, these substances are extremely dangerous.

00:03:30 #32 This trend toward drugs has alarmed every responsible segment of the community,

00:03:35 #33 for they know that there are inherent risks in the drug experience.

00:03:41 #34 Aside from its illegality, there's a medical risk to the brain and body.

00:03:46 #35 Perhaps the biggest risk is the placing of the psyche and peril.

00:03:52 #36 At the moment, these students are striving for something.

00:03:55 #37 In time they may become total dropouts from a world that needs desperately what they can offer.

00:04:02 #38 To try and cut through the undue propaganda on both sides of the drug problem, Dr. John T. Burroughs,

00:04:09 #39 Medical Director of Narcotics Education with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Youth Advisory Council,

00:04:15 #40 clarifies the extent of the drug problem and the term addiction.

00:04:21 #41 Well, I think the use of the word addiction is definitely obsolete and it's been a very

00:04:26 #42 unfortunate thing that it has been used to try to define whether a drug is harmful or

00:04:32 #43 not.

00:04:33 #44 This use of the word addiction was started with the World Health Organization in 1950

00:04:39 #45 and they have realized their great mistake in this and have recently in 1965 completely

00:04:45 #46 redefined drug problems in other terms.

00:04:49 #47 We know that the drugs have two effects that cause dependency or the desire for the use

00:04:55 #48 of the drug.

00:04:56 #49 And the most important one, and the one that was not emphasized in the previous definition,

00:05:02 #50 is the psychic dependence.

00:05:04 #51 The dependence of the person from a mental point of view upon needing or desiring the

00:05:08 #52 drug.

00:05:09 #53 Now, there is also with some drugs, physical dependence.

00:05:14 #54 One important part of the drug problem is that so many substances are available or are being

00:05:20 #55 made available for use.

00:05:23 #56 Dr. Burroughs describes some of the major ones and their effects.

00:05:28 #57 From the complete anesthetics or the ones that will put you entirely to sleep, we

00:05:31 #58 can go into the depressants or the downers as they're known and these are of course

00:05:36 #59 primarily the barbiturates.

00:05:39 #60 These are known as the red devils, the secondalls, the nebutals, or yellow jackets, the two and

00:05:49 #61 alls or rainbows, and so forth.

00:05:52 #62 These are all, of course, the barbatured drugs.

00:05:55 #63 They can be taken by mouth, or some people prefer to take them out of the capsule and

00:06:00 #64 give themselves the drug intravenously.

00:06:03 #65 Now the barbatured rates have some very severe problems with them.

00:06:07 #66 For one thing, they do produce tolerance to a certain degree, and it is necessary to take

00:06:12 #67 more and more of the drug to produce the same effect.

00:06:15 #68 However, this tolerance is limited.

00:06:18 #69 Now, under the effects of the drug, there tends to be a distortion of time, and of course

00:06:24 #70 the person is confused.

00:06:26 #71 And the person may accidentally take more drug than he had anticipated, forgetting

00:06:31 #72 that he had just taken a dose a few minutes before.

00:06:34 #73 In addition to this, the barbiturates when withdrawn do produce a physical dependence

00:06:39 #74 or withdrawal type reaction.

00:06:43 #75 And what the barbiturates is a marked tendency for the person to develop convulsions.

00:06:49 #76 Grand mal convulsions are seizures and unless these are controlled they can lead to the

00:06:52 #77 death of the individual.

00:06:56 #78 After the depressants we come to the next major group of drugs which is the stimulants.

00:07:02 #79 The first ones to be used were the more mild forms, the dexadrine hearts as they were called,

00:07:07 #80 peaches and so on.

00:07:09 #81 And dexadrine is a mild form of a stimulant drug used in medicine for appetite control

00:07:17 #82 and in certain diseases.

00:07:20 #83 In medicine we might give 5 to 10 milligrams of dexadrine or benzadrine or the new drug,

00:07:27 #84 methamphetamine, methadrine, which is known among drug users as speed, as incredible as

00:07:33 #85 it may sound. The person who's using this drug as a drug user will smack or mainline,

00:07:40 #86 that is, take intravenously a thousand milligrams, 100 times the dose that any person would

00:07:48 #87 give in the medical use of this kind of drug. And the effect is overwhelming. In

00:07:55 #88 In this kind of dosage it causes a fantastic speeding up of the mind function so that the

00:08:02 #89 person suddenly feels a rush of tremendous numbers of ideas flashing through his mind

00:08:07 #90 and as a matter of fact with hallucinogenic type overtones.

00:08:12 #91 His blood pressure may exceed 300 millimeters of mercury and as you know normal blood pressure

00:08:18 #92 is perhaps 110 or 120 millimeters.

00:08:21 #93 At the same time, his heart is beating at a fantastic rate, maybe in excess of 150 beats

00:08:27 #94 a minute, normal being 72 or so, and he may develop arrhythmias of the heart.

00:08:33 #95 That is, the beat instead of being regular becomes highly irregular, and there have

00:08:38 #96 been rare deaths reported from that.

00:08:41 #97 As this drug begins to wear off, there's a tremendous psychic reaction and an over-reaction.

00:08:48 #98 the person becomes markedly depressed, severely depressed, which in itself is enough reason

00:08:54 #99 for him to want to take more drugs or perhaps to take barbature rates to ease this feeling

00:09:00 #100 of anxiety and depression or other drugs or back to meth or speed again.

00:09:05 #101 This depression is so marked that the person may wish to and does sometimes commit suicide.

00:09:11 #102 Dr. Burrows describes two more categories of drugs, the delirience and marijuana.

00:09:26 #103 The most important entity, marijuana.

00:09:28 #104 Now the delirience are the drugs such as the glue, the glue sniffing, which include gasoline, ether, paint thinners, even some deodorants have been used.

00:09:41 #105 They, like all the other drugs, produce a mind-changing effect, so that the person feels a feeling of euphoria,

00:09:50 #106 unusual happiness, a feeling of unreality.

00:09:54 #107 These drugs have some severe physical effects.

00:09:57 #108 If they are sniffed so that the actual material that is being used, such as airplane glue,

00:10:04 #109 can get into the nose or mouth that causes a real burning of the mucous membrane

00:10:09 #110 and can cause rather severe damage.

00:10:12 #111 And it is becoming overwhelmingly evident

00:10:15 #112 that an increasing number of children

00:10:17 #113 are showing up with brain damage

00:10:19 #114 and what we call chronic brain disease.

00:10:22 #115 Marijuana is not a separate thing.

00:10:27 #116 It's again, is a drug.

00:10:29 #117 Just like LSD is a drug,

00:10:31 #118 just like amphetamine is a drug,

00:10:33 #119 or just like barbiturate is a drug.

00:10:36 #120 There's a specific chemical in marijuana

00:10:39 #121 known as tetrahydrocannabinol, or let's call it THC from here on out for short,

00:10:45 #122 which is the material, the chemical that produces the high of marijuana.

00:10:51 #123 Dr. Burroughs pointed out that a good deal of the confusion concerning the effects of this drug

00:10:58 #124 is due to its very low concentration in American marijuana or grass.

00:11:03 #125 Smoking typical pot usually produces mind-altering or hallucinogenic experiences, though sometimes it has little or no effect on some people.

00:11:14 #126 But as the drug becomes more concentrated, it has all of the effects of any of the hallucinogens.

00:11:21 #127 In high dosage it parallels LSD and already more purified marijuana,

00:11:28 #128 hashish and the synthesized THC itself are readily available.

00:11:35 #129 I think it becomes obvious after having categorized all these drugs.

00:11:39 #130 We've now talked about all these different categories.

00:11:41 #131 One thing keeps coming up all the time and that is the drug dependent,

00:11:46 #132 mind-changing or mind-altering effect of all of these drugs.

00:11:50 #133 The unfortunate person who gets started in this finds himself getting into an ever-increasing

00:11:57 #134 of this, where he starts out with the idea, I'll have a kick or a high and that'll do

00:12:02 #135 something for me.

00:12:04 #136 Well, it's true.

00:12:06 #137 These things do have a kick, or obviously people wouldn't try them.

00:12:09 #138 But the trouble is the person then gets involved in this vicious cycle.

00:12:13 #139 The kick becomes something that is not as good as he thought it was.

00:12:18 #140 He finds by using his drug that he has lost his capability to be responsible.

00:12:23 #141 He's lost his ability to be a worthwhile, successful student or successful individual.

00:12:29 #142 So he starts to seek ways to help him.

00:12:32 #143 And the only way he can seek since he's using the drug now to avoid the reality of

00:12:37 #144 his failures is to take more drugs.

00:12:39 #145 And down and down he spends.

00:12:42 #146 and he spends into a situation where he is virtually buried alive in a chemical tomb.

00:12:48 #147 This is the problem of drug dependency.

00:13:04 #148 One of the most tragic things about all this, as far as teenagers are concerned,

00:13:09 #149 is what this does to the teenager.

00:13:12 #150 A teenager is a person who has finally grown up to the point that he can begin to struggle

00:13:18 #151 with making his own personal decision.

00:13:22 #152 And he makes these decisions and finally learns how to do them and when he has gone through

00:13:26 #153 this decision making process, he suddenly turns from a teenager to a mature adult.

00:13:33 #154 One of the things that will stop it cold sooner than anything else is the taking

00:13:38 #155 of drugs.

00:13:40 #156 Because in taking the drugs, the person is doing exactly the opposite of what he's trying

00:13:45 #157 to do as a teenager.

00:13:46 #158 He is putting himself into a position where he cannot make decisions, where he is only

00:13:50 #159 irresponsible and incapable of doing this, and he is cutting his life off.

00:13:58 #160 But there are other reasons not to smoke marijuana or to take dangerous drugs.

00:14:03 #161 Possession of them is illegal.

00:14:05 #162 It is not as many seem to believe today an unenlightened law.

00:14:11 #163 Nearly every country in the world, including the United States, is a signatory to an international

00:14:18 #164 law banning the use, sale, cultivation, and possession of dangerous drugs that have no

00:14:24 #165 useful place in medicine, such as heroin and marijuana.

00:14:33 #166 Is the gamble of drug exploration worth this?

00:14:38 #167 Is it worth the physical and mental risk as well?

00:15:02 #168 The courts today are crowded with young offenders.

00:15:05 #169 Tragically, many of them are from good homes.

00:15:08 #170 They're well educated and have opportunities that are available in no other country in the world.

00:15:15 #171 One immature and irresponsible action for whatever motivation

00:15:20 #172 can bring serious fines, prison terms, or both.

00:15:25 #173 A criminal record is never an asset.

00:15:28 #174 It can mean the end of a fine future.

00:15:36 #175 The drug question is a subtle one.

00:15:39 #176 This is an age of change, an age when society and authority are constantly being challenged.

00:15:46 #177 All too often, drugs have played a part in or have been used as a principal means of

00:15:51 #178 rebellion against authority.

00:15:54 #179 But drugs are not the proper tools with which to confront, to change a society that

00:16:00 #180 somehow hasn't fulfilled all its promise. Quite the contrary, drugs rob one of the

00:16:06 #181 energy, the attention, the very ability to see what is. And the ability to work

00:16:12 #182 for effective changes of any kind depends on clear and disciplined minds.

00:16:17 #183 Those who take drugs to produce new insights or for self-discovery or for

00:16:26 #184 or a host of other romantic reasons

00:16:28 #185 find themselves snared and deluded.

00:16:31 #186 Illicit drugs are sold for a price,

00:16:34 #187 the price of helplessness and suffering for the buyer,

00:16:38 #188 for the greed and gain of the seller.

00:16:41 #189 Many of today's young people are meeting the challenges before them.

00:16:47 #190 They are turning on to a world that needs more involvement,

00:16:51 #191 more self-blessness.

00:16:54 #192 The extreme danger today is that which is created by the closed mind.

00:17:02 #193 We must not accept some facts about drugs and ignore others.

00:17:07 #194 The drug issue is wide and complicated and cannot be faced only by the police.

00:17:13 #195 They need the active cooperation and the involvement of enlightened parents,

00:17:18 #196 school, church and community leaders.

00:17:21 #197 But above all, the need is for clear thinking young people

00:17:26 #198 were the most involved and who have the most to lose.

00:17:35 #199 If communication has broken down

00:17:37 #200 between the younger and older generations,

00:17:40 #201 it must somehow be reestablished.

00:17:43 #202 At the same time, it will be necessary

00:17:45 #203 for the young to communicate common sense,

00:17:49 #204 one to the other.