The Turned On Crisis; Compilation

ллллллллл, teen My mother reached out for me, and I enjoyed it, yeah, but my dad didn't.

He never showed one lousy, stinking bit of compassion for me, and I think I got more out of my mother, giving me compassion all that time, and I could face the world better with all that compassion she gave me, than with that non-compassion my dad gave, didn't give me, all he did was never, he never held me, never cried with me, and that made it worse for me to face life than if somebody would hold me, as a lot worse, when you don't have nobody, then when you have somebody, I don't care if nobody, but just one person

holds you, at least you have that one person, at least if it's somebody else, and you only had that one split minute of compassion between each other, that's a hell of a lot, and it's still, it's sticks in your mind for a hell of a long time. For me it was very, very true what you said, just to be held for one minute by your father would have made a hell of a lot of difference. And when he shook my hand the other day, it meant more in the world than any time he screamed and hollered at me, he shook my hand, he showed me that he was proud that I passed my license the first time when he failed a second, he had to go for a second try, and he shook my hand, he made me feel like he had some kind of pride for me. Those moments make a difference, and I can't see nobody being, I'd rather be loved on my life and sheltered really, I think, and then pushed his side and yelled at all the

time, it made me face the world a little bit better, it made me, and then I hate, or not hate, but that hiding and considering a passion, I just couldn't take it. I had a friend that I'm at O.D. on top of a roof, and I went up there and I'd seen him, I didn't know what to do, he would land there in the lips, turn purple, and he got pale, and I was smackin' up, thought it was plant, and he died, and I finally found out, or if he could get some milk, smackin' cold water, something, because at the time I didn't know what to do for him, he just died off him arms, it was a really trip. You see, somebody you went to school with as an elementary school, and just the same lady, and turn colors on me and his dad.

You cannot depend only on your relationship with your child, no matter how good it may be, to prevent his experimenting with drugs. Nor can you depend solely on his fears of death or injury or genetic damage. Because anxiety about sclerosis of the liver and lung cancer has certainly never stopped people from using the two most prevalent lethal drugs in our society, alcohol and tobacco. The question is, what can you do and what is being done to protect your children and all children from the dangers of drug abuse? What's the most controversial approach to drug abuse prevention? Is that of utilizing former addicts to educate young people and adults?

But in Berkeley, California, where controversy is certainly nothing new, a former addict named John Melton is making phenomenal progress in getting through to potential drug abusers. Melton has had 17 years' experience using drugs, and he spent a total of six years in California prisons. How many of you guys have ever seen a cigarette? You like the way cigarettes smell? No, they don't. And you know those cigarettes, you know something about cigarettes, the people that make cigarettes, that matter fact your cigarettes, that sell them. They have to write on the side of the pack that cigarettes are poisoned. They say the cigarettes are poison and poison will kill you or can kill you. Now there are a lot of mothers and fathers and older brothers and sisters who smoke, you see.

But that doesn't make smoking right, it doesn't make it, you know, the thing to do. And I hope, now how many of you guys think you want, how many of you guys think you want to smoke when you grow up? No, I don't know. You think you want to smoke? No. Why do you think you might want to smoke real? You think it might be enjoyable, you think? Well, hopefully, by the time we get through for this semester's over, maybe you might change your mind, okay? Any public program or personal individual effort to prevent drug abuse must, if it is to have any chance of success, be predicated on understanding why people are attracted to drugs in the first place. Mr. Fred Rogers has spent a good part of his life communicating very successfully with young people, indeed some very young people. In recognition of his exceptional ability and his concern for children, he has been named Chairman of the Forum on Mass Media and Child Development of the 1970 White House Conference on Children. We have invited him to share his thoughts on this subject with us now. Every person has hopes beyond his present capacities.

And it's our job, it seems to me, to help children to strive for what they want and not to go on trying to get it by drugs or any other kind of magic. If people who took drugs had the conviction that they could create similar heights on their own, they wouldn't need drugs. If you can achieve fine things by investing yourself, magic becomes increasingly less necessary. Commercialism bombards us all and all too frequently with messages which say, you have to have something beside yourself to get along. You have to have a pill for a headache or a smoke to feel cool or a drink to cope or a toy to play.

Your resources really aren't enough, so be sure to buy ours. Our children are being raised on messages like this, yet all the while they're looking for the conviction, the hope that by their own energetic striving, they can create something of worth. It's our job as adults to find ways to help our young people grow in the conviction that they can achieve self-realization without having to pour it in or sniff it in. We must provide for the dignity of persons through our relationships one with another. We adults want it too. We all want to feel that we've made it a special day for someone by just our being ourselves. I'm O. J. Simpson.

For many years, a problem of drug abuse was considered only a problem of the ghetto, the inner city, the black community. Recently, drug abuse has spread to city schools, suburban communities, and white mill America. Don't have a chance. You don't have a chance. You don't have a chance. You never make a mistake. The answer again is again. The answer again is again. The system is consistent. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. In 1960, 1600 kids were arrested on narcollex charges. By 1969, 1600 kids became over 42,000. Think about that. Marijuana. In college, one out of three have tried or used it. In high school, one out of six. In 1960, there were 31,000 arrests on narcotic charges. In 1969, 31,000 became 183,000.

Marijuana is a hearty plant and travels well. From India, it crept into Europe. The drug no longer has much medical use, but the abuse of marijuana and its effects is today a subject of much controversy and debate. With the invention of the hypodermic needle in the 19th century, opium abuse and addiction became a major social problem. When opium was used during the Civil War to treat the sick and wounded, addiction became so common that it was called the soldier's illness. Even into the early part of this century, people could buy opium-lice drugs over the counter for many patent medicine men. We're a different culture. I don't take drugs because I have to take drugs. I don't smoke grass because Yin's don't want me to smoke grass. I don't do it to just go against your wishes. I don't do it because it's the thing to do. I do it for the same reason that you probably go out

on Saturday nights with your husband and you go to somebody's party to have a good time and you take a couple drinks and you have a better time because it loosens you up. That's your way of loosening up. You just have a couple of drinks. It isn't at your alcoholic. It isn't at your that it's a big problem. You just have your couple of drinks to make you feel a little better because it's fun more or less. But that's the only way I don't take drugs because I'm strong now. I don't take drugs because I want to be an addict. I just take them because it makes me feel better. I like to have a good time just like you do but I don't like the drink. So instead of taking that drink at the party like you do, I'll smoke my joint. Okay, okay. Thank you for that. Why should I be put in jail for that? Why should the police come into the school and throw me in jail because I want to smoke a joint? No, I think the teachers have failed. I think you failed and you don't want to admit it. And that's why you don't want the police in the school. Because when you let the police come in, then you've admitted you failed and you can't handle it. I think in a sense, the presence of the police would demonstrate that the parents have failed, the teachers have failed, the whole school system has failed.

And at the only way we can deal with kids is to have an armed camp, you know, or a... Well, there's nothing wrong with discipline. I think that's one of the reasons for the problems we have today that there's too much cow-towing to the children. I mean, at home, you lay down a law and that's it and that's the way it should be in school. When I went to school, you couldn't even carry a pack of gum in your pocket. The founder of Sinanon, Chuck Dietrich, is an expert at changing lifestyles. I don't know how to cure a drug addict or something. I don't know how to straighten out a delinquent. I think that we have to straighten out the whole thing, the whole group, the whole environment, of which the delinquent are the kid or the drug addict or the drunk is a part. In Tamales Bay, north of San Francisco, a new city is rising. It's been called a commune, a rehabilitation center and academy, it's all of these.

It is an experiment in living. Sinanon began 12 years ago in response to a problem of addiction. But Chuck Dietrich feels Sinanon's real business is teaching people to accept and develop themselves. Sinanon is a chance to live in a free new way, a total commitment to an environment designed to change people. My mind begins to wander when I come to Lyricone. The dental assistant on the porch has sent a baby candle to the world at all. She knew much more than I thought but I was young to young to know. I have seen too much too soon some prayers, something's gone below. Would you come up here a minute?

Just go with me for a minute. I'd like to try and focus what you're saying and I'm going to do something sort of in a role-playing fashion. Let's say here's the mayor of Pittsburgh or Schenectady or whatever town it is and you have a certain view of what's wrong and you know feeling about it and why don't you lay it on it and let's move it into a little. Okay. We in the ghetto realize that the dope is not a fear. It is a reality. Our kids at 9, 10, 11, and 12 know what a dope man is. This is not a fear. This is a reality. It is a reality because the white power structure has allowed dope to undermine the moral fiber of our community because the dope that is coming into our communities is being brought into this country not by the black people that are using it but by the white people

that are the white entrepreneurs that are using it as a financial factor. Well, I see what you're saying as speaking as the mayor, you know, but what do we do? I mean, you know, you're a... This is a medical problem, not a local problem here in Pittsburgh. You love me. Hey, Mark. You're not asking him to pass you the sugar. You're asking him for love so make him feel it. Mark, come on. No, I have more. Yes, come again. Will you love me? Will you love me? What's the matter, Mark? Nothing. Come on, Mark. What are you afraid of? I don't want to look bad. Look bad. You know, you're looking bad right now. That image of yours is right up front and it's keeping you from asking for something that you want for something that you really need because you're real lonely.

You're a real lonely person, Mark. And you really need it bad. And I know you want it. So just ask for it. Come on, Mark. Come on, Mark. Mark, come on, Mark. Will you love me? I think I'm what you need, Mark. Will you love me? I ain't doing this. You ain't doing this. No. What do you mean you ain't doing this? That's just just set out in the street. Every time something got hard for you, you're red. You're in straight to the cooker up high five or six pills in your mouth. Isn't it time to grow up, Mark? Is it for once in your life to do something like a man would do to ask for love when he wants it and when he needs it? Come on, Mark. Grow up and ask him. Come on. Come on, Mark. Will you love me? Will you love me? Will you love me? Will you love me? Rani, will you love me? Rani, will you love me? Rani, will you love me?

Rani, will you love me? Rani, will you love me? Oh, love me! People who take drugs are searching for peace, for comfort, for release from the pain and anxiety of everyday life. With drugs, they can find release, but new tensions, new fears can replace the old. Fear of discovery, fear of family hostility, fear of the loss of friends, fear of the law, fear of being deprived of the drug that makes life barrel. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. The final fear, death from an overdose of drugs, or if you're lucky along illness and then back on the street.

It's a thing that's accepted, I think, throughout the whole society, only informs which aren't challenged. The aspirin every time you get a little headache. It's something that that part of the drug scene isn't questioned at all. You know, I'm sure it has at least a small part to do with why it's so easy for a teenager to turn to drugs for another solution without being frightened of the consequences. How many people's parents don't wake up in the morning and drink a cup of coffee? That's right. What really frustrates me is, you know, my parents said, why I saw in the newspaper about their considering marijuana legalization, what do you think of that? It's probably not that bad an idea, you know, marijuana isn't that hard as stuff. I was like, what are you talking about? You know, we brought you up.

What's this marijuana legalization? And then they go out at a party, you know, they have quite a few drinks or my dad after work or my mother in the evening, she feels frustrated, she just yelled at my sister, she goes out and gets a drink, and she's telling me, I don't even want you considering marijuana legalization, even ideally. And, you know, I'd never hear if you ever taking any of this stuff. But, you know, then they go and they get a drink, they smoke, or they get a cup of coffee or an aspirin or a tranquilizer. How many of you have coffee with breakfast? I think the inevitability of those sort of tension alleviating drugs being legalized is, you know, it's just obvious. But that's not the problem. I mean, we're not talking about the same thing as alcohol versus marijuana. What we're talking about is the straight cat versus the guy who gets flipped out and is gone forever. I mean, my parents get flipped out in their own way. You know, when they're drinking, they're not the same people as, you know, when they're not. My mother's run by pill.

She takes, at one point, she's taking like 24 pills a day. She's taking pep pills and tranquilizers one after another to go up and down and up and down. And I know she'd be a different person if she wasn't doing well with this stuff. My father, too. And, you know, we can't see it because it's accepted in their society. It's accepted to drink. And there's nothing wrong. Now, if someone takes marijuana and they're least a little bit different than what they normally are, Ah, the kid's freaking out. You know, it's a problem now. But he's not that much different from what he normally is. And, you know, an adult is when he, you know, takes a drink. Well, I'm a teenager. And this class, and I don't smoke pot. And I think he represents that 2% that the people talk about.

You know what the thing is again, you know. He's another square that I meant, you know. I get so many of these squares. These are the kids that dominate all the conversation about drugs. And the kids who really are into drugs who know what it's all about, they're very, very asked. It's squares like him that seem to be taking up all the time. If you want to know more about drugs, why you ask him? He doesn't know a thing. He doesn't even know where it's at. It's right over there. You bet you. Have you ever seen a drug user? Of course. What's in my, most of my friends are drug users. The hard stuff, heroin. No, you gotta be dumb to use heroin. You have to be dumb to use heroin. Well, don't you think that the people who use drugs use heroin or cocaine, they started on marijuana. Most of them. No, they didn't. They started on alcohol before them. But nobody asked them that question. Well, how do you know this?

How do you know they started on alcohol? How do you know they started marijuana? Well, because of coming contact with drug users. Well, I've come in contact with a lot of heroin users too. Asking the other question. Asking if they smoke cigarettes before that. You know, they didn't just start on pot. They had a lot of other substance used before that time. But nobody asked some of those questions. You were talking about a fact. All right, I'm talking about a fact that we know there are drugs. That's what we're going to try to do. And you're saying, if we push them out of the... I don't want drugs in the club. I don't want the drugs used in the club. I can't have anything to say if it happens in another community. I don't want it in our club. That's one of the things. We're trying to keep this club open. By keeping this club open, we're going to accomplish a lot. We're going to prove that you youngsters can keep control of this. Okay, Mr. Ray. So therefore, that's one of the things that... It's not ever the complaint of noise, peeling out, and drugs. That's correct. Okay, those are of small few teens doing that. Does that really give you a reason to close it down? I think you're covering up your eyes to all the good that's been done. You can... No, I'm not. You're taking it all off you and then with the whole club.

No, you're saying it's only a few doing this. That's correct. That's correct. The majority aren't doing it. No. Then the majority rules and you can control those few. Not as a kid. Not as a kid. The majority of England couldn't control it. The majority rules cannot control a few youngsters.