i'm james that i'm on this program another six which follow we will be exploring the world of drugs the complex issues raised by drugs in our society and particularly the rising concern with drug use among children in elementary and junior high schools now you may say this doesn't concern me or my children or my community but this is less and less true we found that if you ask any child in this age range know other children who are using drugs the answer is usually yes this was not true several years ago the change has been sudden swift and dramatic now there are a host of attitudes points of view and information that we're all exposed to on this subject some confuses us some allows us to become complacent some disturbs us some is illuminated school children hear them all and must make decisions and i think that there are actually two two ways in which and planning means in particular may be misused or abused perhaps the largest single group else it is a dangerous substance all by itself we have found here in our area that one of the most effective approaches to young people is to chat with them about  what kind of a person are who we are when the only way we can get kicks in the only way we can have a meaningful party the only way we can get  pressures off our backs and the only way we can cope with situations is through a chemical that we're not really much as a person pretty powerful but i think if you just want to relax a little bit that's why a lot of people smoke just to relax and just a little bit i you know i don't say if you discussed it go home and get stoned you know that that's not today's program we'll look at the pervasive drug influences in today's america with comments by experts on aspects of the drug problem later programs to look at the role of drugs in other cultures and the pharmacology of specific drugs we will see how children are exposed to drugs at an early age we will observe a series of dialogues between teachers children and consultants to communities responses to the issues will be presented finally we will see children and adults working together to better understand each other and consider alternatives to drug experimentation let us begin now with a key statement by doctor joel forte former drug consultant to the world health organization former director of the council on alcoholism for alameda county and presently lecturer in the school of social welfare at the university of california berkeley first of all we live in a drug ridden or drug saturated society where people are taught from infancy to use a wide variety of mind altering drugs and older people like many younger people have to conform to the pressures of the massive advertising and promotion and distribution of certain drugs the glorification of certain other drugs such as marijuana and l s d by the mass media politicians and drug policeman the desire to find or at least to seek escape relaxation sometimes feeling with many people essentially not being able to feel anything a sense of  socializing with other people is certainly involved going along with the crowd and again i think we're taught that we cannot have a good time to not find happiness or significance in life without depending on one or more mind altering drugs people don't have parties without drugs the cocktail party of course the most common group drug experience in american society and they have accepted it in essence  i think as a summary answer to the question the adult world and an increasing number of young people as well have accepted and are living the industrial slogan of better living through chemistry a study by the stanford research institute indicate that the average middle class home contains about thirty medications half of these are prescribed on the advice of medical doctors most of the rest are said prescribe bought on the advice of friends or through advertising pharmaceutical products and big business about eight billion dollars worth in one thousand nine hundred sixty seven it is an industry that grows on vigorous research and new product development seven out of ten prescriptions written today are for drugs that were unknown fifteen years ago advertising is essential to the drug manufacturer one major stream of advertising is to the two hundred sixty five thousand m d s who write prescriptions here is the accumulation of one week's mail to a psychiatry just a gynecologist and a pediatrician m d s receive an average of eight thousand pieces of advertising samples and brochures a year for the rest of us advertising teaches directs and channels our uncertainties about illness medication and mood changing drugs into specific products to buy in the first version of this program several television commercials were seen one for a national brand of wine one for a headache remedy and one for a tablet good for headaches stomach upset codes etc all of the companies involved later withdrew their permissions in point of fact all but one of the numerous companies we contacted were unwilling to have their commercials viewed in the context of this program many told us that they felt it was inappropriate to have their product seen as part of a drug using culture it is clear however that some drug advertisers describe their products in such glowing terms that our children begin to associate adult drug use with magical properties of mood change instant relief and other all pervasive affects the corporations who are unwilling to air their television commercials or companies selling beer wine coffee aspirin related products cold bills and medications for children for the next two days notice these products and notice how they are advertised consider what out the tubes your children are learning obviously diseases have been checked life has been extended and living conditions have been improved through the use of drugs but the basic message of these and other advertisements is that the quality of life can be improved through drugs it would appear that we are living in a drug conscious and a drug using society this series however is not about all drugs and not about all people but centers on the young their interest their fascination with drugs in a drug conscious society whether we like it or not a growing number of children are experimenting with a growing number of drugs at an earlier an earlier age that was part of a song called white rabbit by the jefferson airplane it was very popular with the young it refers repeatedly to drugs many adults are puzzled by this kind of music children are puzzled when you tell them this is simply another reflection of the growing interest in drugs among young why this interest there are many kinds of answers we've asked experts from a variety of backgrounds an in service instructor in drug education drugs are here to stay they've been here for quite a while people of all age levels use them from the very young to very old i don't think collectively we can come up with one solution a judge of this a period court of the city and county of san francisco for four years i served as judge of the psychiatric department of the superior court had a chance francisco general hospital in that capacity i had to determine whether or not people and young people in particular would be sent to the state hospital and there i saw the tragic impact of drug abuse upon our children and i said to myself that something ought to be done about it and what can be done about it well now let me give you a contrast which perhaps might furnish an answer i don't think the answer lies in criminal sanctions and harsh criminal sanctions you see now i preside over the criminal department of their superior court and people are brought before me because they have used drugs and the penalty is a very severe and the people are treated as criminals and not as sick people but i want to make this clear that it is the law and the law must be abated and in this connection i'd like to call attention to the fact that in my office are two thousand affidavits filed by people in a case attacking the constitutionality of the marijuana statute and among the two thousand people all of them said that marijuana was not harmful and most of them said marijuana was not harmful because they themselves had used it now i disagree with these people i think that marijuana is harmful psychologically harmful and i do not believe that marijuana should be legalized but what causes me a shock if i may say so weird that two thousand people in effect have indicated that they have violated the law now the answer does not lie in violating the law the answer lies in the tempting by democratic means to change the law now it may well be that the legislature at some time in the future may change the law and say that violations of the law for drug use shall not be punished by criminal  until that is done the law must be abated i do think that the penalties are much too severe i do not think for example that a person who uses a drug should be treated taken are simply for the hallucinogenic effect they can take downers or uppers or middlers in any case the need for stimulation sensory stimulation is obviously manifest in their non drug the havior and this is found in the music in the dress in the clothing in the bazaar it's almost as if one were sensory hungry and that's a hunger somehow in suburbia was not met and it is my very definite opinion that until we find mode he's of stimulating the young mind and body within either the school setting or in the community where they can feel a part of some where something has meaning where there is feedback from say adult to use and use to adults that we're going to be missing about in any educational program where did this need for stimulation come from and remember the key were stimulation which is opposite to boredom and if there's any common phrase used as to why youngsters are taking drugs or doing the more direct way out things it is that they are bored and then that i mean researcher well if you're talking about the use of unfettered means intravenously i think there are two two draw the facts which are important  number one is the immediate effect of the drug that is the flash for the rush which is in many ways similar to a total body orgasm and a lot of people who who use them for the means use them primarily for the abilities he feels that he's able to to think very quickly that he's very perceptive in some cases if used over a long period of time the pattern means become almost psychedelic in effect and finally there is the kind of lifestyle  one gets caught up in namely the the total involvement in using and procuring amphetamines and and in a sense his life becomes very similar to the kind of life that a heroin addict some kids are misusing drugs because they've got a pretty distorted picture of who they are their healthy kids they've got a lot to go going for them in terms of their ability to study to relate to be free but for some reason that's not the way they see themselves that maybe the way the world views them but that's not the way that seems and so they continue in their drug abuse to to to kind of cope with the kind of an unhappy world i counsel a girl now for instance who every sunday night becomes very nervous very anxious she's very tight she is trying to prepare herself for facing school on monday now this girl isn't in the best sense of the word beautiful and i don't mean just physically she's really great she's in comes from a pretty solid family she's got tremendous potential she's open and free she laughs but she feels rejected now in some way she's trying to handle social kind of problem which you know by any objective measure really does not exist but it's a way of coping and drugs accomplish a great deal in the short period of time she takes barbiturates almost exclusively re and it allows you just to back off from the pain of what she feels is rejection so those who i think stay with that are people who who are trying to cope with a kind of a negative self but those who did act out in extreme fashion are people that are hurt people and this is their way of kind of pulling back into a corner and saying at least i got this name this is my bangs a superintendent of schools the people in our district to a spend a great deal of time talking with young people tell the that the young people continually say that there is a breakdown in communication with the parents the parents either are not interested in listening or that they don't have the time to listen or that they don't care the fact that their parents may be over involved in work or in various other activities which they may have this is the sort of feedback that we get we talked with two men of widely different experience one dr steven patel works in a research project in haiti ashbury the other done mccune is the director of instruction in a middle class school system it is interesting how their comments reinforce each other and young people are using the drugs come from every walk of life the old stereotype that only the bad kids from bad environment and bad homes are the drug users just doesn't hold true anymore where quite sure now that the drug problem goes through our society one continuum to the other those who are economically well off those who are economically poor and all those in between those who come from the good parts of town quote and the bad parts of town and everyone there is no one that escapes they come from very diversified backgrounds little class families lower class families even a number of upper class families geographically they come from all over the united states the peer group pressure that our young people are under today the desire to be with the group to be one of them is certainly a very key factor in their turning to the use of drugs and i guess the only thing that they have in common is their failure to find some sort of identity in any previous environ they've been they feel that they are more at home with the people who are here in the head ashbury who are using drugs and i feel that they can communicate better with others who use drugs young people in school today are being asked to perform at levels which we seriously doubted were possible in years before so therefore we're having a motional pressures on our young people and some of them are turning to drugs to escape others are turning to drugs to turn on instead of turning off to become stimulated they seek excitement and psychologically they're somewhat unstable and turn to the use of drugs to do this they're often a lonely sometimes confused and often very idealistic young people who are trying to find some meaning in life through the help because for through these drugs young sensitive bored maladjusted searching or curious children are attracted to drug experimentation in a drug oriented society ours is not the first culture to grapple with the attractiveness of drugs but rarely has a culture focus this kind of attention on the issue this series will look at the most basic of these issues that children are choosing and i believe that in education we are obligated to give the young people the knowledge so that they can make a proper decision we know that the decisions that are being made by young people are made when we're not there to help them so therefore we must prepare them to make these decisions and if we believe in