Hallucinogens-Why Taken The hallucinogenic drugs have been irresponsibly promoted as a means of expanding consciousness. Some promoters who openly urge such use have adopted the slogan "Turn On-Tune In-and Drop Out." The abuse of hallucinogenic drugs has also been part of a more subtle promotional theme involving "rock and roll" music, psychedelic books, magazines, and newspapers. Unfortunately, use of these drugs is considered the "in" thing to do by many. Youth are especially susceptible to the current glamorization of drug-taking by nonconformist groups. Since adolescence is a stage of experimentation and "finding one's way" in life, youngsters may find the urge to "try" drugs attractive. Look For When the user takes hallucinogenic drugs, he experiences distortion and intensification of sensory perception with lessened ability to discriminate between fact and fantasy. These users often speak of seeing sounds, tasting colors, etc. There is a dilation of the pupils and dark glasses are often worn, even at night. The user may be restless with an inability to sleep until the drug wears off. He may, however, exhibit no noticeable physical signs of drug intoxication. The mental effects are quite unpredictable, but may include illusions, panic, psychotic or antisocial behavior, and sometimes impulses toward violence and self-destruction. On April 8, 1968 the Department of Treasury's Bureau of Narcotics and the Food and Drug Administration's Bureau of Drug Abuse Control were transferred to the Department of Justice and merged as the new Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The various districts of the two former Bureau's are also being merged and some new districts will be established throughout the United States. In addition printed material on narcotics and dangerous drugs is being combined and in some instances revised before being published by the new Bureau. Until such time as this merger is completed you may contact any of the below listed offices for additional information or assistance. Mr. SIMMONS. Prior to this massive educational campaign, Mr. Chairman, we conducted a meeting with the editors of the high schools in the Chicago area. It was amazing to me how well these youngsters were informed about drug abuse and the questions they propounded to us from time to time were most interesting. Of course, I think we found in this particular instance that the program that we had developed, the material we had developed had some impact, and it was the material that we thought would have the greatest impact and probably be respected by these youngsters throughout the country. Then I think we developed this kit and we made it available and sent it out to our pharmacist members, representing some 36,000 members and owning about 40,000 retail drugstores in the country. Well, from time to time these pharmacists began to make presentations before the school boards, the various civic clubs, various educational groups, the faculties and school groups. Sometimes we would have a small group of 40 people, and in many instances we would have 200 to a thousand in this and throughout the country we were spreading this information about the importance of the drug abuse. I think the response was most gratifying to the organization as well as to the retail pharmacies that have a real sincere interest in this program. I might mention the fact that we had other people involved in this program. I think we made available to the American Medical Association, the physicians of the American Medical Association, some 3,500 kits, and we went on to make these kits available to the dental profession and the law enforcement people and many other groups. I would like to point out that this new kit that we have developed, this educational program that goes to schools, I think is one of the most important programs that we have developed because this basic program was so important to us. But, after this we recognized, in working with some of the people, that this must be available through the school systems and get the educators to become involved with us in this program with the retail pharmacies, and this was developed early this year and now we have a program going into most of the schools. I might point out that a short time ago I had the opportunity of appearing before a group down in Missouri of educators, of the principals of the school districts, and I had an opportunity to speak to these people about this program, and we have their full support, as we have the support around the country. The next people that I would like to mention, the next group, is the Kiwanis International. The Kiwanis International located in Chicago talked with me many times in my office about the program. Now they have developed a program, "Drug Alert," I believe is the title of their program, highlighting the drug abuse program in all of their clubs throughout the country. We recently made this kit available to any number of Kiwanians throughout the country and we believe that this will prove very satisfactory and very helpful to all of us involved with this program of talking about and explaining to these youngsters the importance of proper respect for drugs. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that when the 1969-70 school year has ended hundreds and thousands of youngsters will be made aware of this serious problem of drug abuse, and obviously we were very happy to participate in the first organization, the first national organization to become involved in a real drug abuse educational program. I am happy to have had the opportunity to make this material available, and we would be glad to leave you one of these kits because I think it is so important. I might also point out that of the first kit we developed, about 75,000 were made available to these people I have mentioned; of this last kit we have about 55,000 that we are now distributing to our members. As I said, we have had some material in the kit that is designed principally to the school official or the teachers and we have now also printed some 25,000 additional sets of this material because we have had a tremendous request from school systems, and various PTA groups that are involved in this in addition to the educators. If there are any questions you might have I would be happy to answer and, of course, we were very happy to have had this opportunity to appear before you this morning. (The prepared statement follows:) STATEMENT BY WILLARD B. SIMMONS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RETAIL DRUGGISTS Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to appear and discuss before this Committee one of our society's most serious problems, that of drug abuse, and of the effort being made to curb this problem through an education program developed and conducted by the National Association of Retail Druggists, through its members, the independent retail pharmacists of the nation. Even prior to the promulgation of the Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965, the N.A.R.D. was deeply concerned about the growing problem of drug abuse. We felt that the problem concerned every retail pharmacist, not only in regard to the dangerous drugs that the new law imposed strict control over but the problem of abuse of these drugs. We knew that the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control of FDA was giving a great amount of time and thought to education in this area. It seemed that a logical extension of the program would be to enlist the aid of the professional man at the community level who has the greatest knowledge of drugs-the local retail pharmacist. Traditionally, the pharmacist has been a community educator, who is expected to answer many questions about drugs and about health. Because the retail druggist has maintained such an important role in the community and because the drugstore in America is a health care centerand in many instances a gathering place for young people-it seemed proper to put these advantages to work in a drug abuse educational campaign. After much preliminary work and careful planning, the N.A.R.D. program was launched. The National Association of Retail Druggists developed its first and basic kit on drug abuse in 1967 and we call it, "Never Abuse-Respect Drugs." I have with me today the basic packet used by pharmacists in conducting their own drug abuse educational programs. "Never Abuse-Respect Drugs" was so named because the initials spell out NARD to emphasize our sponsorship of it. I also have with me our newest kit which I will mention a bit later. The first kit included a fact sheet on misused drugs; a detailed plan for a 45 minute to one hour program to be given for schools or clubs; a list of visual materials including film and slide presentations which are available for use; letters about the program which can be sent to school and civic groups; and public service announcements for radio and television. Also in this kit were booklets provided by the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and clinical data reprinted from the American Medical Association. Prior to opening the massive educational program, we conducted a meeting for high school editors in Chicago as a kind of test run. We made various presentations on the subject to 100 youngsters and, believe me, they were most interested |