From: Sheila Momaney <sheila_momaney@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu>
Subject: 48 Hours on Haight Street
Reply-To: sheila_momaney@rad-mac1.ucsf.edu
Organization: The Internet
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:04:31 GMT

GatorMail-Q                   48 Hours on Haight Street
henniss@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Kathryn Henniss) wrote:
|I thought the 48 Hours show on acid last night was
|irresponsible, sensationalistic, bullshit journalism, 
|very skewed towards portraying acid as a societal menace.
IMO it was less skewed than most media portrayals.  If anyone
taped it, I'd be interested getting a copy.

|The only sympathetic points ... (b) they
|showed one guy, an alcoholic, who took acid under medically
|supervised circumstances (what a waste of a trip, eh?)
I can only guess what exactly you mean by a waste of a trip,
but FYI if you are at all interested in LSD being marketed
(so to speak) to the public, then it is best to show the
benefits of LSD use.  Alcoholism is rampant in this country
and while treatment programs-- which are usually 14-28 days
in-patient--combined with 12-steps programs are generally 
accepted to be the best means of initiating and maintaining
sobriety, staying sober is sometimes tenuous; it amounts to
*complete* lifestyle change--physical, spritual, emotional.
Alcoholics don't just "quit being an alcoholic", as you so
eloquently stated.  The man interviewed has stayed sober for
27 years; his marriage has lasted thus far and he is a father
and a grandfather, and he attributes his sobriety to one
experience with LSD.
I hardly call that a wasted trip.

|..I thought they were way heavy on
|stories about people who ate HUGE amounts of acid and ended
|up with problems, people who (like the guy who did acid
|and said he had a bad trip that lasted 3 years), who just might 
|have been fucked up to begin with, and would have had to deal
|with it whether acid existed or not.  
Maybe you were in the bathroom when this was stated.

|Don't you think it would be just as sensational...(if)...
|they interviewed LOTS of people who have done acid and 
|who (surprise, surprise) hold down jobs, make lots of money, 
|create important things, contribute to American 
|education/art/industry/politics? 
Yeah, are you going to be the first to volunteer to be 
interviewed?  Just for starters, try walking up to your boss
and saying you can't understand why LSD gets a bad rap.  I was
nearly expelled from graduate school (a degree in treating 
alcoholism and addiction, BTW) for trying this very same
ridiculous tactic.  While I managed to make some people in
the program aware of the misguided societal panic surrounding the
use of hallucinogens, it was truly years of hellish debate.
Start small sister.  Tell your family first.

|...when the reporter asked if he thought it made sense for one person
|to get sentenced to 40 years and another to just 10 years just
|because the blotter paper one sold was heavier than the other
|one...And what does that have to do with whether
|the weight of the paper should matter or not?
The reporter was attempting to point out the injust manner in 
which LSD dealers are sentenced; by the weight of the contraband.

|I guess I'm mad at 48 Hours for such shoddy journalism...
It seems like you missed some key points in your haste to be angry and
defensive.  Yes, some of it was bad, but not all of it.  Sometimes
you have to glean the gold from the dust. Sidestepping the "But
alcohol's dangerous, too, and it's legal" argument, let's not forget
that there is a reason LSD is illegal.  I take it you've never seen
anybody take that turn around the bend and never come back.

ODC:  I need a ticket for the Sunday Oakland show, please, thanks
and much obliged.  Promise not to sell really heavy blotter.


Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead