News in Perspective; 111; Drug Use and Drug Abuse

[music, "Itchycoo Park"] "Over bridge of sighs To rest my eyes in shades of green Under dreaming spires To Itchycoo Park That's where I've been What did you do there? I got high What did you feel there? Well I cried But why the tears there I'll tell you why It's all too beautiful It's all too beautiful It's all too beautiful It's all too beautiful It's all too beautiful..." [narrator] - From New York City, News In Perspective: Drug Use and Drug Abuse Presented by National Educational Television and The New York Times

With Clifton Daniel, Associate Editor; Richard Severo, The New York Times; Sanford D. Garelik, President-Elect, New York City Council; and Dr. Edward Lewis, Jr., Chief Medical Officer of the United States Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. [music] "It's all too beautiful It's all too beautiful...." [Clifton Daniel] - The music you've just heard is a song celebrating the delights of LSD, hash and pot. The song is "Itchycoo Park." "Itchycoo Park That's where I've been What should we do there? We'll get high What shall we touch there? We'll touch the sky. It's all too beautiful.

All too beautiful." Drugs, as everybody knows, have become a part of our culture: music, art, literature, social life and politics. What are drugs doing to us? What should we do about them? What can we do? Here at this table are three men who know the problem and have reason to hope that something can be done about it. First, Sanford D. Garelik, President-Elect of the City Council of New York, The second-highest job in the city government. Mr. Garelik was formerly Chief Inspector of the New York City Police, The highest uniformed rank in the force. Next, Dr. Edward Lewis Jr., Chief Medical Officer of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

And my colleague, Richard Severo of the New York Times. Mr. Severo has written many articles on drug addiction and its social consequences. Sandy, you've just returned from an Anglo-American conference at Ditchley in England, a conference on drug-taking in the younger generation its causes and effects, and ways of checking it. What was the main conclusion of the conference? - Unfortunately, the conclusion is that we do not know enough about drugs, that there isn't any easy solution to the drug problem. There was a consensus at the conference that was to this effect: that there will have to be a great deal more research on the drug problem, a great deal more objective evaluation of the various programs that are now in effect, a greater degree of coordination between England and the United States.

Dr. Lewis, the Nixon administration has offered a rather stringent bill in Congress to deal with drug abuse. Do you think it will be passed and that it will be effective? - Yes, I think it will be passed, I have every hope that it will be passed, and I'm sure it will be more effective than the old existing legislation. It will obviate the other statutes that we have, put everything into one package, and instead of enforcing three sort of unrelated statutes, we'll have one bill to work with. - Dick, so far as you know, do the agencies dealing with drug addiction generally support the proposed new federal law? - Well, they've said little, but I assume that they do support a new stringent drug law, because after all, everybody that I've ever spoken to was in favor of arresting heroin pushers.

The point is, though, that whether they support it or not isn't really critical to the problem. I mean, I think that we're continuing to deal with this problem in legal terms when we should be dealing with it in medical terms. Well, before we speculate further on how we should deal with it, let's get a few facts. Let's take testimony from an expert. Dr. Michael Baden, Associate Medical Examiner of the City of New York. Dr. Baden has a special professional interest in drug addicts, dead or alive. In the museum at the Medical Examiner's office, the City Morgue, he has an exhibit of drugs and the devices used to administer them. Dr. Baden, do I understand that narcotics addiction is now one of the most important causes of death in New York City? - Mr. Daniel, I think that's correct. In New York City, drug addiction, heroin addiction in particular, is the leading cause of death in the 15-to-35-year age group, more people die of drug use

and drug abuse than any other single cause. - In that age group... - Yes? - How many per year? - This year, there'll be more than 900 deaths from drug abuse, in particular heroin addiction, of which about 90% are in that age group. - 90%... how does this compare with five years ago? - Five years ago, New York City, there were less than 250 deaths associated with drug addiction, - An almost fourfold increase then. -Yes. - Tell me, what kills: the drugs themselves or the way they are used? Demonstrate for us with some of your exhibits? - I think that to understand the effects of drugs on the body, especially heroin, one has to appreciate the matter in which it is taken. The various opiates, be it heroin, morphine, methadone, demerol, have for many years been very important medical drugs with important uses and do not cause any body harm as such, unless it's taken in the manner in which the, is taken by the addict.

The heroin bags -- heroin is sold in the various bags -- is taking a very unsterile manner. Because of the unsterility, the lack of sterility, arise the various infectious complications, such as hepatitis, tetanus, or lockjaw, infections of the heart and other organs. Also within the bags, the amount of drug is not clear, the heroin is mixed up with quinine and sugars and other substances, and this material is put into a cook or a bottle top, much as was seen in the opening film, taking up in the syringe, be it a homemade syringe or a medicinal syringe, injected intravenously. The complications arise because of the lack of sterility and the unknown amounts of drugs present in the packet. - Who are the principal victims of death by drugs? Are they Blacks? - Well in New York City, about 50% of the deaths occur in Black persons, 25% in white persons, and 25% in Puerto Ricans.

There's been a striking and alarming increase in the teenage use of drugs and deaths resulting thereof as Mr. Garelik mentioned, and perhaps 25% of the drug addicts, the heroin addicts in New York City are now 21 or years of age or younger. - What social or economic classes do they belong to? - Whereas 10 years ago, a large part came from the ghetto area, a large part of the drug problem came from the ghetto areas, we're seeing increasing numbers of deaths in the middle-class suburban areas, Queens and even Staten Island now have had increasing numbers of white middle-class persons dying of drug abuse. - Does it spread even farther than that beyond these outlying boroughs into the suburban counties in New York, New Jersey? - Our jurisdiction in New York City is the five boroughs but certainly there's been a marked increase in drug use throughout the state of New York, in many suburban areas. Much of it relates to the use of pills initially.

These are some pills taken from the places of death of persons, usually heroin addicts, but sometimes barbiturate addicts, amphetamine or speed addicts, persons who start using pills and then may use heroin with pills, without pills, and this has been an increasing problem. Of course marijuana is a different category of perpetual problem - A different category of perpetual problem, in what sense? Well, my personal view, coincides very much with what Dick Severo just mentioned. I think that to understand why people use drugs, one has to, in addition to deal with the law enforcement aspects of cutting down the availability of drugs, one has to go into the reasons why people use drugs, and a person who injects these needles and syringes in this self-destructive way, causing all kinds of scars and tracks in the arm, is mentally a lot sicker

than a person who smokes marijuana because his peers are smoking marijuana and who may go on to be a perfectly normal well-adjusted citizen later on. Our studies at the medical examiner's office indicate that the heroin addicts who die, the large majority of them have had anti-social records, juvenile delinquency, arrests, other types of anti-social acting out before they ever used heroin, and I think we can't approach the heroin addict in the same terms that we use, speak of the marijuana user, who's using it for perhaps a different reason, sometimes. - What's the remedy then? Medical treatment, psychiatric treatment, prison, the combination of all three? - I think it depends on why the person is addicted. I think in medicine, we've been on a wrong foot for a long time trying to cure cancer by using just one, looking for one magic solution. We would now realize there are many causes of cancers, therefore many cures for cancer. The same with drug users. There are many reasons why people use drugs.

Many of them, I think, will be susceptible and have been susceptible in pilot programs, to the group therapy, psychiatric approach. Other persons may be susceptible to drug maintenance programs. Others may have to be imprisoned. I think all of these areas have to be investigated as Mr. Garelik said and evaluated for what addict and what drug user does well in what kind of treatment modality, and certainly the law and medicine have to work together, it can't be exclusively one or the other. - One final question, Dr. Baden, how many drug addicts are there in the city of New York? - I think that 100,000 heroin users is a good estimate from the data that we have, and there are many times that many number of barbiturate, amphetamine, LSD users, certainly. Thank you, Dr. Baden. Dr. Lewis, Dr. Button has given us the local dimensions of this problem in New York City. What are the national dimensions? - Well, I think they're quite comparable, I think the problem in New York, of course, is greater. Probably more than half of our addict population is in New York.

We don't have any real accurate figures on the subject, and for this reason, the director of our Bureau has recently established a task force for accumulating addict statistics. And this is a multi-disciplinary task force with representation from various government agencies. And we hope to have some real accurate figures in the near future. - But you wouldn't venture an opinion at this time as to how many addicts there are in the country as a whole? Let's take a question and make it more specific. Do we have any large concentrations of addicts in other major cities of the United States? - Yes, we do, I think in San Francisco we have a large concentration, Chicago area, There are certain college campuses in the country that have a tremendous problem But I think as Dr. Baden pointed out, this problem is not necessarily a hardcore heroin problem, it's rather a drug experimentation culture. Where the kids use everything from various types of pills to intravenous mayonnaise and peanut butter.

Things of this sort, which is, as you can see, largely, just an experimentation syndrome - What effect does mayonnaise produce? - In the four cases with which I'm familiar, the young people experience some sort of what they call "the flash." Of course, there are numerous toxic effects from injecting this sort of substance. In one region in California, some of the young people injected milk, intravenously. - That'll give them cholesterol if they're not careful. - That's right. - Dick, you've made a good broad study of the whole question of addiction. Do you have a figure for national usage? - No, I really don't because we're having a great deal of difficulty in determining just what is an addict. We haven't really got any figures on who is using, how often they use.

We can only, we can only guess. We know how many registered addicts there are in New York. That's about 53,000, I think. - Registered, what do you mean "register"? - Well, there is an narcotics register in New York that gets its names from police sources. And the agency is dealing with addiction. And we have about 53,000 names on that list. And we think that, and Mike could talk about this perhaps more authoritatively than I could, at the rate at which they're dying and names appear that are not on this list, we think they're about 100,000 in New York City alone. - One more fact, Sandy, and you are the... certainly the expert on this one. What's the relationship between drug addiction and crime in New York City, where you served as a police officer for how many years? - 30 years, it's a very, very close relationship. If there is any new factor in the crime problem, which of course is a growing problem, it would be the factor of narcotic addiction. It's estimated that approximately 40% of those that are confined on Rikers Island

are addicted. 40% of the cases, serious cases, that come into the criminal courts have a base in narcotics addiction. - Why is there such a concentration of addicts in New York in your opinion? - It would be difficult to come to a quick decision relating to that problem. I think that in New York we have a great many tensions, we have large migrations of people coming into New York with the ensuing difficulties that often arise from migrations into urban communities. I do think that narcotic addicts are attracted to each other also, so that narcotic addicts would be attracted to so-called narcotic centers. We see the same situation, for example, in London.

We have a small nucleus of narcotic addicts in London. They do tend to congregate together and communally that becomes a so-called base of an operation as a difficult problem. - This brings us to the question really of why there are so many more addicts proportionately and totally in the United States than there are in other countries. Do you get an opinion on that point when you were at Ditchley? - Actually, the statistics that we have relating to narcotic addicts are very, very faulty. We do know that many more people are multiple drug users today. So it may be that in New York City we may have a high percentage of individuals that are using heroin. But it also may be that there may be high percentages of people who would be using other types of drugs in other communities. - Well, usually the use of drugs, particularly narcotics, Dr. Lewis, has been associated with backward countries,

indolent countries. Drugs have been used socially and medically for thousands of years, used in places where it was thought that life was so miserable that man would seek a haven or surcease from his troubles by taking drugs Why do they take drugs in the United States, which doesn't quite meet this description? Some areas of it do, but certainly the country as a whole does not. - Well, I think originally the hardcore ghetto problem in the United States was a result of poverty and exposure at an early age to this sort of thing. For instance, many addicts with whom I have spoken have said that they started using mainline heroin at the age of nine or ten years. This is amazing, but when a child gets up in the morning and sees his father shooting heroin and his mother, and then his 13-year-old sister, it sort of becomes the natural thing to do.

I think this is particularly so in the ghetto. - To what extent, Dick, does drug use addiction, sale of drugs dominate life, social and otherwise in the ghetto districts of New York? - Well, as Dr. Lewis was talking about the ghetto in New York, I just want to interject one thing here, and that is that recently I've been talking to some Englishmen about the problem over there. The growth of addiction in Great Britain has been not among the ghetto people, not among the West Indians and Indians crowded into the London slums. - Well, haven't we heard from Dr. Baden that the same even is true in this country, that the spread now is among the middle class, the white and the affluent. - I think we have to start thinking in terms of addiction well beyond the ghetto because it's a problem that transcends the ghetto in every way now. - Yes, it does now. - No question. -It certainly does. - Dr. Lewis, to what extent is drug addiction then attributable to prescription drugs,

to drugs that are indeed manufactured legally and supposedly sold legally? - I think a relatively small percentage of drug addiction is directly attributable to prescription drugs that are prescribed by physicians for their patients. I don't mean to minimize the fact that there are a number of instances where this occurs. But I think that an individual who is a drug dependency-prone individual seeks drugs and may get them on a doctor's prescription, may get them through illicit channels, somehow he'll get his drugs. The number of people who are actually made addicts by the physician is relatively small as far as I can determine. - Incidentally, wasn't drug addiction at one time quite common among doctors? - Oh yes, it still is. - It still is? - We still see certain types of synthetic opiates being abused by physicians who become addicted to them. - Sandy, Dr. Lewis has said that drugs are prescribed, of course, for people and they become habituated to them.

But how extensive is that illegal traffic in legitimate drugs in New York, as far as the police are able to determine? - I think that there is an extensive traffic in legal drugs. We're becoming a drug-oriented society, unfortunately. - Why are we so drug-oriented? - Well, this, of course, is a problem for the psychiatrists and sociologists and people from the medical profession. This is one of the basic questions that we will have to turn to for a great deal of research. Just why? It seems that, and there isn't any doubt in my mind, that we're going in that direction. However, in terms of science, we don't seem to have the basic facts on that question.

I recall being in Bolivia 20 years ago, and the coca leaf was sold on the streets of Bolivia. And the average age of an individual in Bolivia was 33 years old. And the individual died from malnutrition, apparently as a result of the effect of eating the coca leaf. So it seems that we've had drugs with us since the beginning of society. As to various forms that drug-taking takes, it's really unknown to us. We hear a great deal about new chemicals, about mood-making, and it's just imperative at this time that we have some very good basic research into the entire problem of drugs.

Why do people take drugs? How many people are taking drugs? Do they change from one drug to another? Are we substituting one drug for another? We know we have some basic problems, that many more young people are involved than ever before, that many more people are dying from the use of drugs or apparently in our modern society, that's true. - Well, in search of facts, let's turn to a man who has, if you like, actually fought the desperate battle of drug addiction. James P. Murphy, 23 years old, a drug addict until three years ago, now director of Odyssey House, which operates ten facilities in New York and New Jersey for the treatment of drug addiction. Mr. Murphy, how old were you when you started using drugs? - My first experience with drugs occurred when I was about 13 - How'd you happen to start?

- I started with a group of friends who were with me at that particular time and who I stayed with after school. And it was through their sort of telling me about marijuana, which was a drug that I initially tried, that one particular night, we happened to run into a fellow in the neighborhood who happened to be selling marijuana, and between the three of us, we got, I think it was about a dollar together and that was my initial experience. After that sort of just, sort of went along with the crowd, went along, I think, with the peer pressure created at that time and continued to smoke marijuana, eventually going on to other drugs. - You went on from marijuana to what? - To barbiturates, and amphetamine. However, before going on to them, it was almost a period of about three years where I exclusively smoked marijuana. - What was your family and educational background? - I graduated from high school, attended college in the evening,

I grew up, I'd say, in a lower-middle, middle-middle class family. I'd say pretty much of an average sort of family in many ways. Both my mother and father worked. My sister, who was six years older than me, attended college, and actually now has married, never used drugs. And I'd say that in many respects, other than the fact that, in looking back now, other than not ever feeling challenged or trying either in school or socially, I'd say it was a pretty average sort of background. - You say you started your first drug experience with a dollar, taken up among you and two friends, but drugs become a very expensive habit, don't they? How does a teenager get enough money to sustain it? - Through various ways, mostly illegal ways, through stealing, through selling drugs themselves to other people,

Through working... - You were able to continue your school work and to continue your employment while taking drugs? - Yes, I wouldn't say that it was a normal case. My reasoning, I think, for continuing work and continuing school was I knew that if I had stopped, either one, that I would have eventually gotten hooked on heroin even more than I already was. - How did you manage to kick the habit, as they say? - Well, I kicked on several different occasions, up until my coming into Odyssey House the longest time that I remained off of drugs was about eight days. When I was 20, after seven years of using various drugs, including heroin and LSD, I went into the Odyssey House program, which at that time was in a hospital ward in New York City. And became involved with group therapy sessions that were going on there.

And some of the approaches, in a sense, with psychiatric approach, in a sense, which dealt with some of the underlying reasons for drug use rather than the drug addiction itself. - How many drug addicts have you known in your life? - I'd say personally that I've known, that I know their names, at least about a thousand. - What kind of people are they as a class, or can they be defined as a class? - I don't think they could be defined as a class, insofar as many usual ways, I would say that they could be defined as a class insofar as a particular value system, though. - What is that value system? - The value system is one which centers around drugs, total involvement of the normal day centers around obtaining money for drugs, how to get drugs, who has the best drugs, and how not to get arrested. - This all bears on what Mr. Garelik was saying about the association between crime and drug addiction.

Tell me, what is your primary concern about the problem of drug addiction at this particular moment? - I think my primary concern right now is a spread of addiction, which Dr. Baden mentioned, which I think everybody has referred to amongst young people. Right now it's estimated by several health officials in New York City that we have about 25,000 heroin users under 18, not to mention all the other drug type users. And despite the fact that the number has spread to almost epidemic proportions our ability to treat these people, our ability to provide funds to treat these people, has been extremely limited. Right now, Odyssey House, with the exception of one other program in Central Hall, it's the only long-term residential program to treat heroin users under 16. So that I would tend to think that we have to direct more efforts towards the younger people.

- Incidentally, who supports Odyssey House? - Odyssey House is supported in a very odd way. We receive about one-third of our funding from governmental sources, the other two-thirds comes totally from the community. - How many addicts would you say that you've cured? - We have out in the street, and we recognize cure in a sense of a period of five years, we've been in operation now three years, so I have to qualify my answer. But we have now, I'd estimate, about 60 people who have either graduated the program or in the reentry phase of the program, who are living outside of the House. - Do many of your patients revert to addiction? - Of those who graduate the program, we've had two who have went on to another program and have done quite well. However, there are many people over the course of a 15-month treatment program. We drop out some of them, although having dropped out before completing the program, still remain free of drugs.

Those people, though, many of them do revert back to drugs, and we see maybe a year later, in some instances as quickly as two or three days later. - Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Sandy, I think it's obvious that there's no panacea for drug addiction. When you were a candidate for the city council presidency in New York you outlined, however, a program of several different approaches. What in your opinion is the best combination of remedies for the problem? - I think that the combination has to take in all the disciplines. It's quite obvious that we don't have a law enforcement answer to the program, that there isn't a medical answer, that there isn't just a sociological or psychiatric answer. We have to do a great deal in terms of education and moral values, I think that all the disciplines have to be involved in a total program relating to drug abuse, it seems to me, and I don't have any scientific basis for the fact

that drug abuse is a problem of attitudes, and it's a problem of education, basically. And it involves, the answer to the problem involves every discipline known to man and we are just going to have to mobilize the total resources of our community to combat this terrifying problem. - You think our first emphasis then should be on the young and on education. - Yes, if there is to be a priority, it has to be among the young. As was indicated, we speak about cures, we speak about the relapse. We have to define just what a cure is. But I do think that the first emphasis has to be in terms of the young, educating our young as to the dangers of drug abuse. We have to do a great deal in terms of prevention. Certainly the treatment of the addict is a much more difficult program.

But we just have to be involved in terms of treatment and rehabilitation, and education, prevention, not only in terms of being compassionate, really, but just in terms of making good sense. We just can't continue to destroy the resources of our community in a human and an economic sense. - Dr. Lewis, we have heard several times here that we don't know enough. Does the federal program, the program of the Nixon administration, provide enough money for research and study? - Yes, I believe they do. Considerable funding is available through the National Institute of Mental Health for research and education. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs also engages in research and educational activities to a lesser extent.

But we have a division of educational programs which is in the business of acting as a catalyst with many groups, philanthropic groups, medical societies, professional societies, clubs throughout the country. And this organization or group provides these people with informational material, holds seminars and this sort of thing. - What about the penalties in the federal program? What about law enforcement? - Well, as you probably are aware, the administration bill has just come out of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, has been referred back to the Judiciary Committee, and along with this, there has been a suggested penalty schedule which has been put together by the Bureau,

and there has been considerable talk about lightening of penalties. Suggestions have been made, they are a part of the package now, for lightening penalties in certain areas, for first offender treatment, for making misdemeanors in many areas where previously they were... - That is likely treatment for beginners, stiffer penalties, for the chronic users or for sellers or... - For what we call a professional criminal. - Professional criminal. Would you agree with that as a formal police officer, is that the proper approach? - Yes, well, as relates to the racketeer, the individual who sells narcotics for profit, I think that we have to be severe in terms of the penalties that we apply to him. I think the victim, the addict, has to be treated as an individual, has to be treated as a sick individual.

- As a victim rather than as an offender? - Oh yes, I would think that that would be the approach. Of course, the problem is much more complicated than that. Sometimes the addict, the victim, is also a criminal and one has to decide as to what he is principally, a criminal or an addict. But I think that just in terms of the entire approach to the problem of even criminality that we have to begin to think in terms of treatment of individuals and not really criminals. Each person is different, and it's an obligation of society to view each person as an individual and treat them accordingly. - Dick, you've seen narcotics sold on the streets of New York, do these distinctions make sense to you? - No, I really don't even think we have an approach at the present time. And I think that... - You mean locally, nationally or otherwise? - Both, both.

I really, you know, it's not perceptible to me I think Sandy Garelik has certainly put his finger on you know, what's wrong. I think we have to, Jim Murphy was talking about a value system, what the value system is for addicts. I think we have to ask ourselves what our value system is. I think we have to ask ourselves, those of us who are not addicts, I think we have to ask ourselves why we are interested in the addiction problem at all? - Why are we? - Well, frankly, I think the only reason there is any interest in the addiction problem now is because it has inconvenienced a lot of people who are not addicts. And the reason it has become a law and order issue is because addicts steal. The thing that concerns me is that what's missing in our public policies is a massive effort to reach people before they become addicted. Before they become a public nuisance. Recently, for example, I was talking to some people at the New York State

Narcotic Addiction Control Commission. And they told me that they did not think there was a need for facilities for people in their low teens or pre-teens. Now, you know, that's incredible to me. The 16 and 17-year-old addicts just don't come out of the air. And we've heard Jim Murphy tell us that when he was 12 or 13, he was experimenting with drugs. And we simply have to try at this point in time to reach these kids because if we don't we are never going to solve it through the courts. - Must we arrest them and confine them? - Well, I think if you reach them at the age of 12 or 10 or 9, I don't think... I mean, you are precluding arrest, you're getting to the problem before that becomes necessary. - Do you agree, Dr. Lewis? - Yes, I agree 100%. Education is the key - Well, education and then treatment for those who don't respond to education. The methadone treatment seems to be one that is very much talked about and yet highly controversial.

I believe the addict has given daily doses of methadone which is itself a narcotic, synthetic one, a chemical that supplants the craving for heroin. What's the view of the Bureau of Narcotics on the methadone treatment? - Well, the Bureau has undertaken a study in the last eight months to determine how these programs operate, and then to enable the Director to come up with a realistic position and issue some guidelines and some regulations for the careful control of well-run methadone maintenance programs. - That is to say the Federal Bureau of Narcotics has some faith in, in methadone. - Well, I think the federal Bureau of Narcotics recognizes that there is a place for this sort of research into the adjunctive care in the total rehabilitation of narcotics addicts. And in recognizing this, I think the Bureau is preparing to come out with something that will allow such programs to operate as long as they stay within a certain set of guidelines.

- Do you agree from your experience in New York, that's a proper approach? - I think that we have a great need for this type of program. And I would suggest very strongly that at this time we don't know whether it is the answer, that we do have to have objective research into the program. I wasn't suggesting earlier that we do have an approach really to the problem of narcotics. And I very, very much agree with Dick that we need a totally new approach to this very massive problem. - It seems to me, from listening to all of you, that everyone is looking for an approach but we certainly haven't found that this table, in any case, in any case an agreed one, have we? It's clear too from our conversation that the use of drugs is growing, especially among the young. And it's obvious that the drug most widely used by young people is the mildest one, marijuana. Indeed, many young people argue that it should be legalized, like whiskey.

That's the position of Fred J. Salek, 20 years old, a junior studying urban problems at New York University, and a candidate for the University Senate, which is a student-faculty body that will concern itself with university policy. Fred, as a dormitory floor advisor at NYU, you must meet a great many students. To the best of your knowledge, how many of them use drugs? - Well Mr. Daniel, it's hard to say. We've come to the point now where people who don't use marijuana, for instance, will pretend that they do just to appear to conform. On the other hand, use of amphetamines and barbiturates are, I guess, quite traditional on college campuses in times of exams. But overall, I would say probably about 70% of students use one form of drug, especially marijuana. - Well, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that at least 25 to 40% of students have tried marijuana, Would you put it higher at NYU? - Yes, much higher, and I would say nationally,

it's probably higher than that. - Why do students take drugs? You mentioned taking drugs at examination time, presumably to keep alert and awake. What other reasons are there for taking drugs? Among young people who are sufficiently affluent, who have sufficient hope and life, to... opportunity in life to be able to attend a good university. - Well, for instance, in the case of marijuana, it's very much a social drug. It can be used at parties, it's very much, it has an effect very much like alcohol. Except that in many personalities, alcohol will produce a sort of a violent reaction, and I've never heard of this in marijuana. - Do you know any students who use heroin, which is presumably the hardest of all? - Well, I've heard rumors to the effect that there are 30 to 50, heroin users on my campus. I don't know of any, and I think that may be exaggerated, but I'm convinced that there aren't many. - Do the students who are on your floor or in your dormitory come to you with drug problems? - As a matter of fact, they come to me and ask me where they can get some.

- That's their only problem. - That's it, yeah. - There are other problems, of course, Mr. Daniel, but there... You must understand that as a floor advisor, it's my job to bust people. In other words, university policy is no illegal drug shall be in the dorm. And the wonderful people in the administration have made a my responsibility to enforce that law. And of course, no one's going to come to me with a drug problem if they think I'm going to confiscate them and report them to authorities. - Is it enforceable, this university regulation? - Never. - Do students generally share your belief that marijuana should be legalized? - Well, you must realize that even people who don't use marijuana have many friends who do. And they certainly don't want to see these friends in jail. Now we would like very much to see wide scientific research and the results of this research, so we know exactly what effects marijuana have. Well, with the situation as it is now, with 12 to 20 million people using marijuana, I think it should be legalized even without research and certainly regulated, taxed, and as Mr. Garelik says there should be education.

- What would be the virtues of legalization in your opinion? - Well, as it stands now, we have these marijuana laws which are, in my opinion, dividing the country on a scale second only to Vietnam. Now a question is often asked does marijuana lead to harder drugs? Well, I think the marijuana laws lead to harder drugs. Because if you use marijuana, you've been told over and over again what a horrible thing it is. And then a person who uses it, very often, in his opinion, at least all these stories about the terrors of marijuana are just untrue. And then he's very reticent to believe the stories about the terrors of LSD. And even speed and heroin. And of course, another factor is that the person who sells marijuana in large quantities very often can get you speed, heroin, anything you want. And that by driving... the law, by driving students into the hands of these sellers of marijuana also drives them into a community where heroin and speed and other dangerous drugs are quite prevalent. - You've spoken of the evidence that smoking marijuana, evidence that some people offer, that smoking marijuana may lead to the use of other drugs, more dangerous drugs.

When you advocate legalization, does that possibility worry you? - Well, it's a possibility. I would say that the possibility comes from the fact that people with very grave psychological problems who want to escape will try marijuana first. And after a while, of course, they'll go into harder things. If it were legalized, I doubt that any more people would go on to heroin. And a matter of fact as I said, I think it would be less because people would not come into the contact with the heroin and speed using society that they do now. - Thank you, Fred. Fred Salek is not alone in his opinion about the legalization of marijuana. Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, for example, says that we are damaging our country, our laws, and the relations between young and old by prohibiting marijuana. She says this is far more dangerous than any overuse of marijuana. What's the opinion here? Would you agree with Dr. Mead? - Well, I think that most law enforcement officers would not agree with Dr. Mead.

I think that most law enforcement officers would like to see more research on the problem. When a society, such as ours, has just gone through a period where we've banned cyclamates and diet drinks on the basis of some medical evidence, and I think that our society did so rightfully, I think that it's appropriate at this time not to legalize marijuana. There are some good research programs at the present time evaluating marijuana, the results will be in very, very shortly. I do think that our laws should be reviewed, putting marijuana in a proper perspective as relates to other laws. At this moment, the legalization of marijuana, I think, would cause a great deal more difficulty in society.

Marijuana isn't a vitamin in a way, it doesn't produce good results. I don't know that there is a necessity for the use of marijuana at this time. So I would like to wait a little while before any kind of legalization. - Dr. Lewis, as a pharmacologist, would you agree? - Yes, I agree with Sandy that we need to know much more before we render such a monumental decision. - Dick, in your opinion. I think we need to know more, I don't agree with Mr. Salek that the controversy over marijuana is second only to Vietnam. I think they're perhaps other things that are more important than that. One of the things that was called in my attention over this past summer when I was doing some work in narcotics was that because of Operation Intercept at the Mexican border, which stopped the flow of marijuana coming into the country,

a panic resulted in New York City which drove the price of marijuana up. And there's some suggestion that as a result of that some children experimented, began experimenting with heroin because the price of heroin was lowered as a competitive thing. So I'll go along with Mr. Salek in that respect. But I really, the whole idea, I think it's my middle-age showing here, but the whole idea of marijuana - You're in good company if your middle-age is showing. - It really turns me off, but perhaps he's right that it should be legal, but I really think we have to work... Well, legalized or not legalized can marijuana be controlled? Let's talk about it from an enforcement point of view for a moment. You, although middle-aged, I suppose, happily not old enough to have served in the police force during Prohibition, but would you say that defiance of the law in smoking marijuana has now reached scale that defiance of the law reached in the Prohibition era?

Is the problem that acute? - I would say that it's almost that acute and it certainly is an extreme problem that we're facing. But when you speak to people about legalization of marijuana, in most cases, they would indicate that there has to be some sort of control. Just where do you begin? Do you make it available to an eight-year-old? - Do you sell it in the ABC stores or in the liquor stores? - Exactly, do you sell it near a school? Would you make it available to a ten or a twelve-year-old? So what we're essentially talking about then is some sort of control system Now as long as we indicate that there should be some sort of control system, I would say that that kind of control system should meet our times and I don't think that anybody would argue at this time that we should just put the marijuana on the market and make it available for everyone. - Mr. Salek said, Dr. Lewis, it in effect, marijuana was no more harmful than alcohol, no more harmful than a dry martini, if it's harmful.

Medically speaking, do we know that to be true or not? - Well, we don't actually know with regard to marijuana because we don't have any carefully controlled studies with marijuana or the active ingredient of marijuana, which is tetrahydrocannabinol. We don't have any studies with standardized dose in a controlled fashion. With alcohol, we do, we have lots of studies, we have a lot of data compiled. We know the harmful effects of chronic prolonged uses of high doses of alcohol. - I imagine that they're probably more alcoholics in the United States, someone estimates six million, than there are chronic users of marijuana, aren't they? I would suspect so, yeah. - What about tobacco, which is even more widely used than both, which is more harmful. - This is very difficult estimation to make.

Tobacco, of course, has effects on the lungs and the cardiovascular system. And we know that smoking aggravates certain conditions and may be responsible for the production of bronchogenic carcinoma, which is a type of lung cancer. Alcohol, we know, produces, in long-term high dosage use, Laënnec cirrhosis, which is a severe disease, beyond a certain point it produces a fatal situation. With marijuana, we don't know. There are some studies that have indicated that marijuana use chronically in high doses produces psychotic episodes. We know it is a hallucinogen. - Is it addictive? No, it's not addictive. It is habituating, as cigarettes are. But true addiction really relates to tolerance and physiological dependence. And marijuana produces no physiological dependence.

- Do you have any opinion on the point we've mentioned several times, whether it leads to the use of harder drugs? - No, really, there have been various correlations thrown out to the public, and many heroin users began their drug experimentation with marijuana. But a number of heroin addicts will tell you that they went right on heroin without any previous experimentation with marijuana. - Dick, in spite of your middle-aged point of view, would you say that smoking pot is a private act that doesn't do any harm to society like having a drink when you get home in the evening? - Well, I suppose that a man, men have always had the right to hurt themselves and if marijuana is a harmful thing, I suppose if a man wants to take it and hurt himself, he can. The thing that concerns me about marijuana is that it has become an issue among the young at the very time when they are seeking more responsibility and getting more responsibility

and I think that the acquisition of responsibility is incompatible with the desire to be a lotus eater. I think that you need a clear mind, we need young people with clear minds, and I just don't think that marijuana contributes to that. - I think that it might be some consolation to all of us here to know that at least nine out of ten Americans agree that the sentiment expressed here, according to the Gallup poll, at least nine out of ten Americans say that marijuana should not be legalized. The same poll, however, indicates that at least ten million Americans have tried it. Five million more say that they are willing to try it. And some people put the figure even higher, that twenty million people in this country have used marijuana. And I don't suppose that's anywhere within... near the number of people who use alcohol or smoke cigarettes. What are the figures on cigarette smoking?

- I don't have the figures but they have dropped off considerably since the publication of the Surgeon General's report. - Back a moment to control. Is there any hope of stemming the flow of harder drugs into New York City, particularly into San Francisco? Did you find any hope in Europe of stemming the flow at the source? - Well, I guess we should always be hopeful but frankly speaking, I don't look to the solution of the problem of drugs in terms of stemming drugs. The addict is a type individual that will use a substitute when a drug isn't available. We have various chemical substitutes of drugs. I think that when we become too oriented in the direction of trying to find a solution to the problem in the elimination of the drug itself, I think that we're looking in a wrong direction.

- It used to be said that this traffic was controlled by the Mafia, this was one of the crimes laid at their door, is that still true? - Well, I really don't think that that's true. We may have some organized crime in a drug picture, but I do think that there is so much profit involved in drug taking that unfortunately too many people who are greedy and who would violate the law are entering into the drug scene. - Who's selling the stuff on the street corners now, Dick? - In New York, an awful lot of people, just a cross-section of New York life is selling the drug now. - Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you all. It starts here with a marijuana cigarette Does it lead to this, a needle and a syringe? Does it end like this in agony and death?

News and Perspective will return in two weeks. Until then, thank you and goodbye. News in Perspective: Drug Use and Drug Abuse has been presented by National Educational Television and the New York Times. With Clifton Daniel, Richard Severo, Sanford D. Garelik, and Dr. Edward Lewis, Jr. Tune in two weeks from tonight, when Clifton Daniel and New York Times editors and correspondents bring you another edition of News in Perspective. This is N-E-T, the public television network. Nationwide distribution of the preceding program is a service of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.