Dear Ann Landers,


dear r.f.,
Thanks for your letter. There's a lesson to be learned from it. Pills are pills-and they don't know what you're taking them for. The chemi-cal reaction is the same whether you're trying for a trip or hoping to lose weight. Benzedrine and Dexedrine (the most popular diet pills) are ampheta-mines. They can raise your blood pressure, louse up your mental machinery and lead to addiction. No teenager should take these pills unless he or she is suffering from a specific illness for which a doctor has prescribed them. Even then, if he finds himself getting zonked, he should inform the doctor so the dosage can be cut or another medication substituted, ann landers "Speed" is amphetamines injected into the vein for a bigger jolt. The most common variation (and the most dangerous) is methamphetamine (meth) which is severely addictive. When injected, it is called "mainlining." It doesn't matter how a user starts to mainline, the results are almost al-ways the same. Body weight decreases, malnutrition occurs, and the user needs more and more of the drug to stay "wired," or stimulated. In the 1960s, during the heyday of Haight-Ashbury, the hippie district of San Francisco, users of amphetamines were injecting 5 grams or more per day into their veins. The usual medical dose by mouth is from 10 to 30 milli-grams. This means the amphetamine user had developed tolerance by a factor of hundreds or thousands. "Speed kills," but "it could make you crazy first." If you think this informa-tion is propaganda put out by an Establishment Square who is trying to scare you, read this quote from Allen Ginsberg, hippie poet and superstar of the far left: "Speed is antisocial. It will make you paranoid. It's a drag. It's bad for your body, bad for your mind. The only people who can stand Speed freaks are other Speed freaks-and then, not for long." Here is an interesting description of the Speed freak by Dr. Sidney Cohen of the Center for the Study of Mind-Altering Drugs at the University of Cali-fornia at Los Angeles: "The Speed freak is overactive, irritable, impulsive and suspicious. He may sit and take his clock apart and put it together a dozen times, or he may be-come abusive without apparent cause. He is unpredictable. He is a nuisance. He is completely unreliable and irresponsible. Those who try to help him re-ceive no gratitude. Let him into your home and soon you will be crowded out by a swarm of other Speed freaks who will come at his invitation. When they leave, you will have a sizable mess on your hands and a telephone bill which looks improbable." Here is a transcript of what it feels like to freak out on Speed. This track was made in a drug treatment center in Chicago. The boy is eighteen years old and a high school senior: "I started to pop these pills for kicks and, man, were they a groove. After two pills, I thought I could lick Muhammad Ali. I also thought I could make it with any girl in the crowd, but I was wrong on both counts. A kid half my size knocked my brains out when I called him a couple of names which reflected on his mother. Then this chick that I got the hots for was willing, but I couldn't hack it with her after I took a second Co-Pilot. I don't know why, but I just couldn't. She got disgusted and told me to buzz off. This made me depressed so I took another couple of Co-Pilots and backed it up with a shot of gin that just happened to be sitting there. "For some crazy reason I began to get the shakes, so I grabbed a couple of 'downers' to get me calmed. Man, I started to dive like on a roller coaster. I never wanted it to stop, so I got myself a packet of crystal (more Speed) and sniffed it like cocaine. It was like an atom bomb exploded in my head. I found the bed and enjoyed the fireworks for what must have been a couple of hours. When I saw it was light outside, I knew it was the next day. "I mainlined it to keep the ride going and all sorts of scary things began to happen. I heard a knock on the door and I was sure it was the FBI. It was really my buddy who came to check on me. I was sure he came to turn me in. I begged him not to. I promised him half interest in my airplane factory and I offered him my Mercedes-Benz. Of course, I was imagining I owned these things. If my buddy hadn't come when he did, I think I would have killed myself." (End of transcript.) The physicians at the drug treatment center in Roxbury, a section of Bos-ton, say the most treacherous aspect of Speed freaking is that the user will do anything to stay "up." He often injects more Speed which launches him into a "run" that could last for seven or eight days. During this time, the drug user rarely eats or sleeps. You can imagine what this does to his body. Some kids took Speed in the late sixties and early seventies (they told themselves) as a protection against the Establishment. Here is such a letter, and my reply: