The youth of our nations are going to "pot" — literally!
Marijuana, or "pot," has become the STUDENTS' CHOICE in top-ranking campuses throughout the United States.
What's behind this drug craze?
What are the effects of marijuana?
WHY do young people turn to drugs?
"BUT Mom," cried one young girl, "everybody smokes pot. What difference does it make?"
If you were Mom, how would you answer?
Marijuana Mecca
Tons of pot cross the U.S.-Mexican border illegally each year, coming from Tijuana, the "pot capital" of the world! An estimated 13 million "joints" — marijuana cigarettes — are puffed away every weekend in the U.S.
Dr. Dana Farnsworth, director of the Harvard University health services, has estimated that up to 35 percent of students at major universities on both coasts have tried marijuana at least once. About half repeat the experiment.
Most of the Americans turning on with pot are under 21 years of age, but an amazing number of adults are also using "sticks," "joints," or "grass," as it is called. Former Commissioner James L. Goddard of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimated that perhaps 20 million Americans have used marijuana. Figures for those smoking it regularly, as a habit, are hazy — some say 400,000. Others claim the true figure is nearer 3,000,000.
Kids Go "Grass-happy"
What really frightens officials is the wild trend toward "grass" among teenagers.
Juvenile drug arrests in California in 1967 were 800 percent higher than the 1960 figures. More shocking, however, is the fact that juvenile arrests on marijuana charges have jumped by 3,433 percent in California in the past eight years. And more frightening, is the fact that "as California goes, so goes the nation."
A Los Angeles police official, A.W. Trembly, former commander of the narcotics division, told a City Council committee that seizures of heroin, marijuana and dangerous drugs have leaped as much as 5,876 percent in Los Angeles in the past ten years — heroin, up 600 percent; marijuana, up 1,587 percent; and other dangerous drugs, up 5,876 percent.
In some Chicago and suburban communities, as many as one out of ten regularly use marijuana or LSD. The illicit drug problem has reached "alarming proportions" with the greatest increase being in the WEALTHIER suburbs! Said Dr. Martin Schwartz, a consultant in charge of child psychiatry at County Hospital, "The situation is apparently getting out of hand in some of our best suburbs."
The trend is already established. Drug usage is not just a fad soon to fade away.
An adolescent told one listener, "Man, when I'm up on weed I'm really livin'. I float up and up and up until I'm miles above the earth. Then, Baby, I begin to come apart. My fingers leave my hands, my hands leave my wrists, my arms and legs leave my body and I just floooooooat all over the universe."
Students, doctors and psychiatrists at Harvard say at least 25 to 30 percent of the freshman class has smoked pot; at Princeton 15 percent of the 3,200 undergraduates have tried marijuana; at Yale estimates range from 20-35 percent. The Dean of Columbia College said he wouldn't be surprised if the number of pot users was ONE THIRD of the student body!
Adding to the "pot peril," and its many ramifications and corollary dangers is the deafening silence from the world's educated.
The consensus among spokesmen for the educational, scientific and religious community seems to be that smoking pot may be against the law, but that does NOT necessarily make it harmful or a sin. Many say smoking pot is a matter of one's own desire, one's own personal conscience.
Some new religious and pseudo-religious cults actually include smoking pot and taking LSD as part of their religious sacraments! The use of drugs in the ritual of one U.S. religious cult has been made legal! Many claim drugs help them lead more spiritual lives, help them find something "meaningful in life." They are searching for answers, and think "Pot is the answer." Some look forward to that "last great high up in the sky," when they die.
Few really understand the shocking dangers of drugs, including marijuana. Most ignore — or perhaps haven't even heard — the FACTS! With all the contradictory statements, conflicting reports, what is a young person to believe?
Deluded into the belief that life is supposed to be "one big bowl of pot," our youngsters are trying anything for a thrill. Pep pills, barbiturates, glue, alcohol, LSD and marijuana are all part of the all-encompassing obsession to escape life and reality.
Socially Acceptable?
Marijuana, its use and its possession ARE ILLEGAL!
In spite of this illegality, "pot" Is SECOND ONLY TO ALCOHOL IN POPULARITY AS AN INTOXICANT (Wakefield, The Addict, p. 18). It's no longer the escape route of the downtrodden only.
Socially, marijuana (Cannabis saliva) has risen from the grime-encrusted slums to acceptance and popularity in the ivy-covered universities of our land. The "pothead" is no longer disdainfully looked upon as a pariah to society. He is benignly considered to be a person searching for identification in a complex and troubled world.
Marijuana enjoys wide acceptance among the so-called intellectuals, suburbanites, college students and — most worrisome of all — even among the sub-teens.
Just try to picture, if you will, little boys and girls — not yet in their teens — smoking marijuana for kicks and thrills. They're much too sophisticated to be thrilled by bicycles and dolls. That's kid stuff.
Imagine — IF YOU CAN — what they will be doing for excitement when they are twenty!
This isn't the prejudicial view of a few hard-headed law enforcement officers determined to keep young people from enjoying life. These are the heart-wrenching FACTS of a sick society.
The sweet smell of marijuana hangs in the air of teenage clubs and wafts down the street in San Francisco, New York, Seattle and dozens of other U.S. cities. It is becoming fashionable in some groups to wear buttons proclaiming to the world, "Let's smoke pot." In many cities, psychedelic stores openly peddle the materials needed for smoking marijuana such as marijuana pipes and cigarette papers. There are even newspapers which advise the neophyte how to get by the drug laws.
Conflicting Stories
What is wrong with using marijuana?
According to its devotees, marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol. "Marijuana doesn't lead to the use of hard narcotics and has no physically harmful effects," claim "potheads." Users juggle statistics to paint a pretty picture.
On the other hand, enforcement officers present a completely different story about marijuana leading to the use of hard narcotics.
Medical authorities strongly recommend against the drug because of harmful effects.
The public is confused. What are the facts?
Dr. Herbert Blumer, professor of sociology at Berkeley, headed a study entitled The World of Youthful Drug Use. It is published by the School of Criminology at the University of California. The study deals with the fruitless efforts of university investigators to dissuade young drug users from their practices.
They and all other investigators or counselors failed in their attempts, according to Dr. Blumer, because they couldn't refute the youngsters' arguments in favor of taking the drugs. Of course, you can never prove something to another person unless the person is willing to listen and learn.
What's the truth about claims that marijuana is non-addicting? Is it or isn't it? The "pothead" will say, "I've been smoking pot for ten years — I can quit any time!"
Medically speaking, marijuana is not addicting. That is, it doesn't form a dependence which ends in withdrawal symptoms when the drug is no longer ingested.
BUT THAT'S NOT THE WHOLE STORY!
Marijuana devotees, it seems, never discuss the FACT that marijuana is mentally and psychologically HABIT FORMING. There may even be some physiological need developed, but not yet recognized by medical tests.