"I've done sopors with three different girls on dates," says a senior at St. Alban's School for Boys, wearing saddle shoes, a brown corduroy jacket and a club tie. "It's been like magic-everyone of them has made it with me."

"Personally, I doubt that sopors act as aphrodisiacs," says Barbara Lewis, one of the directors of the Washington Free Clinic. "Some of the kids who come in here make some fantastic claims, but I suspect it's more a sense of just being down with other people. Kids can feel closer to each other that way and things can flow more freely."

Concurrent with the sudden run on the drug is the fad of sopor parties, where two years ago they would have been pot parties. Several people get together at one house and pop a few of the pills. Because of the amplification effect of the drug on alcohol, it is often accompanied by drinking wine, a standard trademark of the counter culture. According to young people who have attended such gatherings, the evening usually climaxes in one of two ways: various permutations of a group grope ranging from holding hands in a circle to back massages to scattered instances of sexual intercourse or else a rather dreary party ending after a short time with everyone falling asleep.

Paradoxically, according to pharmacologists, it is, in effect, possible to get high on downs. As the body develops a tolerance for the drug, its effect becomes somewhat like amphetamines. By regularly taking sopors, one can conceivably achieve a psychic state on the twilight zone between sleeping and waking, a dazy, dizzy, dreamy realm in which everything settles into a vague, undifferentiated, grey fuzziness. Doctors are quick to point out, however, that this chemical nirvana may well be achieved at the price of psychological dependency on the drug. Sopors, however, do not cause the physical addiction of transquilizers containing barbiturates, which is one reason for their popularity. One Washington psychiatrist to notice the upsurge in the use of ssopors is Georgetown University's Dr. Harvey Rich, who has worked with the Montgomery County Mental Health Association's Hotline drug service and at several area high schools.

"Why should we be so surprised these kids are using them?" he asks. "After all, they've been conditioned for years to believe that pills are a way we control our problems.

"But it's very difficult to try and offer some psychological explanation of why kids are now becoming interested in downs. I have a theory that back in the mid-'60s, when kids were into amphetamines, light shows, hard rock and psychedelic drugs, it was a search for overstimulation, because by hyperstimulating the environment you help control your inner feelings, in the same way that a radio in a room located in a mosiy area can help offset the noise. It's sort of a diversionary tactic.

"It's possible that sopors are a reaction to that control-a control that's not completely gone and isn't a very effective means of control to start off with. Perhaps kids are approaching them as a new way of handling impulses that were released and set flying. They've had over-stimulation and now want to put the clamps down. One way to deal with things that get overly hectic is to go to sleep. That's the nominal effect produced by sopors.

Sopors have probably evaded general public notice because they rarely necessitate medical attention. A fatal accidental overdose (enough to acutely depress respiratory functions) is almost impossible and minor overdoses are slept off, several areas doctors say. But they add that habitual use can cause serious damage to the brain, particularly when used in conjunction with alcohol. How long the current rage will last is something no one seems willing to estimate.

"These things are fads that come in cycles," says N.I.H.'s Robert Robertson, chief of Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers. "Barbiturates and sleeping pills have been popular among kids on and off since they were introduced. When I was a kid, the big thing was booze. Five years ago it was psychedelics and speed. Now it's downs and wine together, althogh the speed and psychedelics are still around. Who knows what we'll be seeing two months from now?"

APPENDIX 12

Dying to be down-A cold look at a hot drug
It's Awful What They Say About Those Nice Sugar Lobbyists
Thought for Food-Sweetness and Blight

A sleek blond in a pink feather boa opens the door to a Georgetown apartment. Everything-from the glossy curve of the Veronica Lake pageboy to the gleam of the silver high heels-evinces the manicured perfection Bert Parks might call "feminine pulchritude."

"My name's Michael," the blond says in a strong baritone. "Welcome to the party."

1 Julia Cameron is on the staff of the Style section of the Washington Post.

Over Michael's shoulder, a pert redhead can be seen lounging against a door jamb. From a distance of ten feet, the redhead is a dead-ringer for Claudette Colbert-the same fluff of bangs, the same Orphan Annie innocence.

"Hi," the redhead says and sidles closer. "My name's Michael, too."

In the kitchen, a solitary scotch bottle stands unmolested on the counter. People are drinking orange juice. In the living room, the superstereo plays one album over and over. The album cover lies just to the left of the turntable. The face on the cover-as pink and gold as a Botticelli Venus-belongs to David Bowie. David Bowie looks exactly like Michael No. 1.

Most of the boys at the party look exactly like Michael No. 1. Feather boas and high heels are de rigueur. Worn over blue-jeans and bodyshirts, they look more like attic remnants inherited from some blacksheep aunt than any drag queen's finery. Yet, mascaraed masculine eyelashes swoop and flutter. The effect is confusing.

On the arms of many of these young peacocks are glistening blackbirds. With few exceptions, the girls of the party wear black. Not the safe "little black dresses" Coco Chanel popularized and which dominated the '50s cocktail circuit.

No, these dresses are brazenly black. They are dresses to vamp in. Necklines plunge. Hemlines are slit to reveal silken legs. In contrast, the girls' makeup is dead-white with kohl-rimmed eyes and lips that glisten in a necrophiliac's paltette of reds and purples.

The scene with the girls in formal black and the boys in brighter plumage, is like a negative from an adult cocktail party. It has a sort of hermaphroditic chic. In a ghastly, Fellini-esque way, the girls and boys are beautiful.

But no one notices.

If they are beautiful, they are also self-absorbed. To achieve this crowd, you might run Narcissus through a Xerox. Unlike those '60s bashes where people made conversation and each other, these people make the scene. The scene they make is cinematic, but the soundtrack is off-there's no dialogue.

No one stands, drink in hand, to debate Civil Rights, Le Corbusier, Miles Davis, Claes Oldenburg and Pop Art. No one, in blue jeans and a peasant blouse, passes on the pipe, arguing Women's Liberation, Woolf, Wolfe and the New Journalism, astrology, ecology or The War.

The '60s-both halves-are behind these people. From that decade's cultural smorgasbord, they took just one lesson. "The medium is the message," MacLuhan told them. "And the message is the massage."

Relieved of the civilized duty to articulate human concerns, the partygoers are visual but not verbal, lovely, but lobotomized. The massage is putting them to sleep.

"Have one," offers a girl who looks like Nefertiti's ghost. She extends a pale hand cradling an assortment of pills that looks like the jackpot from a penny candy machine. "Not that one!" she chides as you reach for a harmless looking purple pill, seemingly a refugee from a Chocks vitamin bottle.

It is a vitamin B-12, she tells you.

"What about this one?" The pill in question is round and white, like a mega-aspirin.

"That's it. Take one of those.

"But what is it?"

"That's a Sopor."

"What's a Sopor?"

The girl gestures with a languid wave of one hand to the surrounding room. To your right, a girl swoons odalisque fashion along a couch. To the left, braced against a few stairs, a boy and two girls drift against each other. They move slowly to the music like cobras charmed by the pipe. In a corner alcove, a couple nuzzles aimlessly, stroking each other with no apparent passion. On a raised platform at the room's far end, six or eight people of both sexes lounge against each other, talking desultorily. Eyelids droop to halfmast. Meanwhile, David Bowie's peculiar mix of rock'n'roll cum nostalgia pulses through the room. When Bowie sings, "Ch-ch-changes," a few people stir enough to sing along.

"That's Sopors," the girl concludes, letting her hand fall against one hip. FACT: A Sopor is a "down" drug. Downers numb the central nervous system to induce artifical tranquility. Downers, perhaps due to FDA clamp-downs on amphetamines ("uppers"), which make them almost impossible to find, are currently a drug favorite. Sopors, according to Dr. David Fram, head of

Washington's Psychiatric Institute's Drug Rehabilitation Program, are "the current favorite down."

FACT: "Sopor" (like "Quaalude") is a brand name for methaqualone, a sedative-hypnotic drug. Like all sedative hypnotic drugs, Sopor is not a barbiturate, although, like all barbiturates, Sopor is addictive. Most street users think it is not.

Street users score methaqualone by brand name: Sopor, Quaalude, Parest, Optimil and others. Unlike most other street drugs, methaqualone is not manufactured under ground. The pills on the street are company pills.

They are pharmaceutically legitimate, and, like most pharmaceutically legitimate drugs, they are obtained from pharmacies-with or without prescriptions. Dealers talk of "cooperative pharmacists" who split a share of the profit. Users brag of stolen prescription pads and successfully forged prescriptions. A "sympathetic" area doctor prescribes these downs for "favorite patients"whether they need them or not.

If these drugs are so dangerous, why are they so easy to get?

Until recently, officials at the FDA and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs have endorsed the "good" drug image promoted by methaqualone manufacturers. Because of this, methaqualone is not on the BNDD's list of controlled substances. Right now, it rates on a danger level par with vitamins and aspirin.

Like the American Judicial system, the American system of drug control functions under the precept "innocent until proven guilty." Because of this, methaqualone will not be more stringently controlled until ALL the evidence is

in.

It is well past midnight on a chill November night when the telephone rings at the home of a Washington area dope dealer. The dealer struggles from bed and catches the phone on the fifth or sixth ring. The caller is a California drug contact. The call is unexpected. The California contact is upset and, because of that, the call is not cool. A lot of uncool things are said over the phone in this conversation.

"Are you still handling Sopors?"

"What?" The dealer is playing dumb.

"Are you still moving Sopors?"

"Sure." The damage is already done and the contact's upset, so he plays it straighter. "Sure I am. Need some?"

"Get rid of them. Don't do them. Don't sell them. Get rid of them."

"Are you crazy? What's wrong with you?"

"I'm freaked out. That's what's wrong with me, I've been doing them like mad and now they say they're worse than smack.

"I saw an article in the newspaper that said you can die with withdrawal off of them. I thought you said they were safe."

"They are safe. You're just freaking out, man. All they are is a mild down. Keep cool. You give them up if you want to. I have to think about it."

For the dealer and his circle of friends, sopors are exactly what he called them, a mild, albiet profitable, down. The dealer is not into them himself and while he provides the supply, the demand, especially strong on college campuses, puzzles him.

He got into drugs in the mid-sixties, seeking through psychedelics to reach the Kosmic Kesey Konsciousness. Drugs were a means to an end, then, he says. People talked about enlightenment, read Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception when they took mescaline, had opium dreams of being another Coleridge. Kids and drugs are different today, the dealer says. They're duller; they hold no great expectations.

Four days later, the dealer's morning mail contains an unexpected item. In an envelope postmarked California, with no return address, he finds a Xerox copy of the West Coast article on Sopors. They are bad news.

Like any responsible salesman, the dealer discontinues the line, but early in December with his conscience still prickling a little, he approaches a member of the press. "Could you write about these things?" he asks, telling the story of the phone call and the Xerox, adding that he has Xeroxed more copies and sent them on to other dealers. Honor among pushers.

FACT: Sopor is a sedative hypnotic drug. Withdrawal from a sedative-hypnotic drug CAN kill you. As Dr. John La Rosa, head of the Drug Dependence Program at George Washington University Hospital explains it: "Withdrawal from a sedative-hypnotic drug is much more severe than withdrawal from any