by Ernest L. Norman
It is inevitable that sooner or later the searching eye of Unarius would be focused upon another common human frailty, specifically, drug addiction. This term immediately suggests to the reader pictures of vile opium dens where poor human derelicts smoke themselves to death. It will therefore be surprising and startling for the reader to learn that the greater majority of the people on the planet earth are drug addicts; in fact, your friends, relatives, and neighbors – even you, yourself, may be a drug addict!
Within the well-defined dimension of drug addiction, the definition of drug addiction is: The use of any chemical or chemical compound, taken internally in one manner or another, singularly or combined with foods, vapors, liquids, etc., the said chemicals or chemical compounds having a definite and known effect upon the physical anatomy and its mental functions and reactions, the said and specific use of these chemicals being taken beyond a certain norm.
This norm is only the occasional usage of such chemicals as a reactive or medicinal agent, temporarily used to combat or relieve certain specified human ailments and when correction occurs, the use of the chemical or drug is discontinued. In this very wide and broadly defined dimension, drug addiction can therefore be said to include even the common and universal usages of coffee and tea. A cup of coffee contains two and one-half grains of caffeine.
Caffeine is a heart stimulant and has been used on many an occasion by doctors who interject it intravenously to keep a patient alive sufficiently long enough to sign a will or a confession. Aspirin compound and seltzer can also be considered in this respect — chemicals used in a common form of addiction. Many people are known to consume great quantities of coffee, aspirin, or seltzer in an attempt to relieve symptomatic psychic pressure or various nervous conditions.
Looking at the people living in various countries throughout the world, we find natives in South America, India, and Eastern Archipelagos, chewing coca leaves taken from a tropical shrub which grows in these countries — the same leaves from which the notorious cocaine is distilled.
In China, the use of opium is very universal; in some cities an estimated 75% of the population are either mild or heavy addicts. Opium is derived from the poppy plant, shortly after the blooms have faded; a silver scraper is used to scrape the juice from the seed pod. This juice is collected and boiled down to a thick, black, gummy substance and from this vile brew, morphine and heroin are extracted which are used extensively in Europe and America.
In India, Borneo, Thailand, especially, milder forms of drug addiction include chewing betel nut. In the near East, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, etc., hashish or hemp smoking is a common form of addiction. It was a cup of distilled hemp juice which Socrates drank in that famous historical episode known to almost all literate people of the world; for hemp, like other alkaloids and alkaloid derivatives is a deadly poison if taken in “large” doses.
If you were to extract the caffeine from one cup of coffee and inject it intravenously, you would most likely die from a serious heart thrombosis in a few minutes time. Fortunately for everyone who drinks coffee, caffeine is assimilated very slowly when taken internally and under this “controlled” condition, the body can absorb large quantities of caffeine without serious results.
Loosely speaking, almost all such types of narcotics or dope are derived from various forms of vegetation which include the popular and universally used tobacco. Nicotine is also an alkaloid; its effect on the heart and nervous system, however, is opposite from that of caffeine, acting as a depressant. Tea contains an alkaloid known as theine, also a stimulant.
However, we cannot neglect other chemicals absorbed into the human system when we drink coffee and tea. One of these is tannic acid, the same chemical used to tan leather and which is a part of that complex chemical structure known as creolin or vegetable coal tars. Within the realm of these creolin compounds, the scientist has been able to extract and synthesize more than 10,000 different chemical compounds, dyes, drugs, and fibers such as nylon and dacron. These also include the phenols which are used to manufacture the various barbiturates or sleeping pills, commonly referred to as goof balls, bennies and pep pills. Seconal is a very popular wide-spread sleeping or deadening agent, prescribed by doctors and bootlegged by druggists and is used by a certain group of teenagers who practice their own type of addiction.
In the past few years, public attention has been focused upon a number of deaths which consistently occurred from over-dosages of sleeping pills and which could not be classified as suicides. As in the case of all types of addictions, a form of dependency is built up starting from a small dose, then an ever increasingly larger dose is demanded by the victim as the mind and body builds up a certain resistance against the drug. The use of any and all such chemicals in the human system either as stimulants or depressants always has a two-way action.
In the case of a depressant, such as in the one of tobacco, the body is temporarily depressed or stunned by the introduction of large quantities of various chemicals. The smoker seems to feel he is relieved; however, as the body begins to free itself and cast off these various chemicals, it bounces, so to speak, in the opposite direction; nerves and tissues are slightly more sensitized than they were before the introduction of the chemicals. This immediately demands another dose in the effort to relieve this aggravated condition and so the pattern goes. The poor victim is now struggling between what he knows is the right thing to do — complete discontinuance — and the continued and ever-increasing dosages.
This is the common conflict fought by every tobacco smoker. The same holds true to some extent for the tea and coffee drinker. This conflict also goes on with the heroin addict as well as the sleeping pill addict. In an effort to get a nights sleep he takes one pill, then two or three, then some night in an overdosed condition and still not sleeping, his hands will grope for the bottle and not being able to remember or even count correctly, he will take that fatal overdose. This is what happened to Amie Semple McPherson, the famous Evangelist and it has happened to many thousands of people before and after that episode.
Proceeding now into more specific areas of what can be called the heavy or major addictions, let us first consider the present national problem of dope addiction as it concerns the use of heroin and which is especially prevalent among teenagers of this country. The actual number of addicts in this category is not known; however, it is believed to run into several million. There are 240,000 known and registered addicts in the United States, in contrast with the British Isles which have a registered number of 3,000. These statistics, incidentally, are used in a presently existing hot controversy between two factions of law enforcement agencies who are trying to control this narcotic addiction (as of 1960).
In Britain, dope addicts can legally buy in the drug store, the necessary daily dosages with a doctor’s prescription. In this country, the addict must become a criminal and must buy from an undercover agent. Moreover, while the price is very nominal in Britain, it is enormously high in this country. Any addict who is thoroughly “hooked” on heroin is forced to take three or four shots a day; this means he will pay out from $75.00 to $200.00 a day in cold, hard cash to enable him to sustain his habit. This, of course, means he cannot earn enough holding down an ordinary job; he is forced to go out and rob, steal and murder to obtain his daily supply.
In the case of a female addict, she is usually forced into a life of prostitution to support her addiction, whereas, it is claimed by the proponents of legalized drug selling that these great evils would be automatically done away with — the dope peddler and the attendant crime and prostitution would vanish — when the addict could walk into the drug store and purchase his daily supply from his wages he had earned.
Of course, in the severe cases of addiction, the victim is unable to hold down a regular job; he is unreliable and unstable and no doubt these people would become charity cases. In any event, the national problem as it concerns dope addiction in this direction is indeed grave and extremely complex; at the present time there is no clear or concise plan of control or elimination and for the time being, it is quite likely to dominate the list of public menaces which are contributing to the decadency of these times.
At this point it would be well to focus our attention upon the number one popular public drug addiction — specifically the use of tobacco, for in this category, we find that it exceeds by far all other types and forms of addictions. The seriousness of this addiction cannot be fully estimated because of the slower and more insidious, long-range effect smoking has on the human anatomy. In the use of heroin, the effect is quick and very noticeable but in tobacco addiction, the effects are more difficult to measure and to establish as the contributing basic factor of certain types of human malfunctions. Every smoker knows, from personal experience, that his habit is not good for him; most smokers have proven this by temporarily quitting and finding a new measure of health in those few weeks when they abstained from their habit.
Specifically, let us now look into such areas of physical conditions which are called cancer and general toxemia. General toxemia is a form of conjunctivitus which noticeably shortens the life of tobacco users. Since 1950, much research work has been done in this field and particularly with cancer. In the early 1950’s general medical practice had noted and recorded an 800% increase in lung cancer, especially among males. In attempting to probe into various causations, researchers discovered many interesting facts, all directly connected to smoking.
For instance, in 1954, Dr. Cameron at Berkeley University, then president of the American Medical Association, made a national report on the findings of his staff, who worked with 250,000 people over a period of several years. In this report, a most astounding and significant fact was revealed: tobacco smokers over the age of 50 years shortened their life expectancy by as much as 60%. In another report, the late Dr. Raymond Pearl, a famous physician from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, stated that a woman who smokes a pack of cigarettes per day, ages her face an additional year in every five years; yet these same millions of women spend several hundred billion dollars yearly buying cosmetics and going to beauty parlors.
Numerous reports have been made by various research organizations on lung cancer and they have all compiled an overwhelming mass of evidence which points its finger at tobacco smoking as the guilty agent and chief contributing factor in the 800% rise of lung cancer. From this point on, a never-ending stream of facts, figures and findings could be introduced and yet, in all of these statistics, very little mention has been given to what is perhaps the worst of all effects incurred in this popular addiction — specifically, carbon monoxide poisoning.
The National Safety Council is constantly issuing warnings about defective automobile mufflers and heaters in homes, which yearly cause several thousands of deaths but no one as yet has issued a warning to the smoker who is, in effect, placing his mouth over the exhaust pipe of an automobile every time he lights a cigarette. Many laboratory tests have proven that smoking one cigarette and inhaling a number of puffs will increase carbon monoxide precipitation in the blood stream by two and one-half percent.
In the early 1950’s, research was carried on by a medical board of doctors in Los Angeles, California, who were seeking an answer as to what effect smog had on the human system. These doctors found that in congested downtown areas, carbon monoxide precipitation averaged 6% above normal with the nonsmokers, whereas their fellow workers who were heavy smokers averaged as much as 12% — and 13% is considered fatal.
In short then, the average smoker carries more than twice as much carbon monoxide in his blood as does the nonsmoker. One of these Los Angeles doctors said, “Inhaling one drag from a cigarette is more than equivalent to inhaling dense smog for 24 hours.” Various other private and national researchers have revealed the fact that the smoker is from 10 to 20% below par, both in his general physical metabolism and his mental reactions.
It is estimated there are over 200,000 Americans who wander from day to day, in and out of doctor’s offices and clinics, all of them half sick and trying to get help and relief from various imaginary complaints and, in most cases, physical checkups have revealed that there was nothing wrong with them except that they smoked two (or more) packages of cigarettes a day.
Before the beginning of the 20th century, missionaries and other people going into the South Sea Islands were sometimes killed and eaten by cannibals. These cannibals, however, would never eat the flesh of a man who smoked because they would become violently ill, just as does a boy who smokes his father’s pipe or cigar for the first time.
It has been found in numerous laboratory experiments that the nicotine extracted from one cigarette can kill a good sized dog. It is this same nicotine which is used in garden insecticides to kill bugs. Recently two French doctors and chemical researchers isolated certain chemicals in tobacco which, when used on rats, mice and rabbits, produced cancer. In view of this great overwhelming mass of evidence, it is indeed strange that people go right on smoking. Tobacco companies have directly admitted the caustic effect of smoking by putting filters on their cigarettes. How silly this is. While every smoker knows and admits the harmful effect of this habit, he will buy the filter cigarettes even though this habit must be sustained by the narcotic effect of tobacco upon his system.
In other words, if the filter removed all toxic elements and drugs from the smoke, there would be no smoke left, only water vapor. Tobacco companies know that when filters were first introduced, smokers did not like them because the tobacco used was too mild; by the time the smoke got through the filter, the smoker did not get his accustomed “kick” or reaction; so the tobacco people counteracted this by using strong cheap tobacco which, when drawn through a filter, was strong enough to give the smoker his craved reaction. Tobacco companies now pay more for cheap strong tobacco than they formerly did for the more mild bland blends.
Up until this point we have discussed only the chemical or auto-intoxicant effect of tobacco on the system. There are actually 234 known chemical poisons in a cigarette including furfurol, the deadliest poison in the medical pharmacopoeia. The effect of smoking in this popular form of drug addiction is not confined to chemical reactions. There is also a psychological reaction which is quite destructive to the moral fiber of the smoker. This demoralizing action hinges upon an escape mechanism which was formed from the many complexes, compounded from various insecurities, deflations and guilts which the smoker has incurred in his lifetime from birth.
When a baby is born into the world, his first great fear or insecurity is hunger. As the nipple is pushed into his mouth, he quickly learns that this gnawing hunger-fear is relieved; this forms an association complex with various other kinds of fears and pains with which he comes in contact in his new environment. And so, to the infant, the nipple becomes the panacea of all ills and troubles.
Just about the time he becomes somewhat satisfied with this regular tranquilizing effect the nipple has upon him, his parents suddenly take it away from him and he suffers his first shock and induces his first neurosis. From then on, this neurosis will remain with him throughout his life. It will, of course, be compounded in later years with other neuroses. Now the child is emotionally disturbed by having been weaned, so he takes to various defense and escape mechanisms. He eats dirt, worms, flies and mud pies, or he may have tantrums, hold his breath and turn blue, or he may have nightmares and scream all night.
When he goes to school, he will chew up his pencils and eat his wax crayons. As the list of various shocks, deflations and fears are lived through, he adds to this general neurosis. To some extent these may be partially dissipated, more so in some children than in others, depending of course upon many factors.
By the time he reaches adolescence, he may be quite neurotic and he, like other teenagers, seeks various means of escape from this neurosis such as are now currently expressed. The be-bop, rock-and-roll music, the strenuous forms of dancing; jitterbug, etc., and these complexes and escape mechanisms are always greatly complicated by the newly acquired dimension of sex. The various queer, weird attitudes of teenagers can therefore be partially justified; in fact he would be abnormal if he did not seek a means of escape. We can also now easily see where, under more extreme conditions, the teenager will take a more drastic means of escape, starting to smoke not only tobacco but another one of the more popular addictions — smoking marijuana.
(Smoking can therefore be considered “grown-up” nipple-nursing and thumb-sucking.)
At this point we must not neglect the factor of cost of the national drug addiction of tobacco. Tobacco consumption is 11½ pounds per capita, which cost the smokers over five billion dollars. This figure does not include another almost one-third percent of the one billion dollar national fire bill, and these national fire losses are small in comparison to the hundreds of billions of dollars lost in forest fires; the chief contributing cause being the careless smoker. We must also be mindful of the ten thousand men, women and children who die each year, directly or indirectly, from careless smoking habits.
The effect of marijuana on the system is quite similar to many other opiates; it has an accelerating, freeing effect on the mental perspective. It also sexually affects the user. Many a teenage girl has lost her virtue after smoking her first “reefer”, for in her semi-drugged condition, all moral values and issues have no meaning and her sexual mechanism has been over-sensitized.
It is estimated by some researchers that in all high schools throughout the country nearly all students, at one time or another, have smoked one or more “reefers”, for the weed from which marijuana is made can be grown in flower pots in a window or in anyone’s backyard. Marijuana has been found growing in many American cities. One man in Los Angeles, California, actually grew and cultivated a hedge grown from marijuana plants, not knowing what the weed was; the seed having been given to him by an acquaintance who was a “pusher”.
Directly or indirectly, all of the 51% of the total crimes committed in the United States by teenagers were done when these boys and girls were under the influence of marijuana, goof-balls, barbiturates or heroin. Therefore the effect on the general public from drug addiction cannot be fully estimated. The comparatively milder forms such as tea and coffee, aspirins, seltzers and such can be disregarded in view of the greater and more drastic effect that the heavier addictions have upon the general public’s moral and physical health.
Alcoholism, too, is one more of the serious and flagrant types of addiction, for alcohol is an anesthesia, deadening mental and physical reactions. It also produces several serious physical effects, such as sclerosis of the liver. It is estimated that there are about ten million acute alcoholics in the United States. These are people who are partially or totally drunk all the time. There are at least another sixty million or more who drink occasionally, or a cocktail or two a day, and only an occasional drunken spree. This type of addiction is, in itself, serious enough but is small in comparison to the general public addiction of smoking which involves at least one hundred million Americans. Because smoking is much more insidious in its effects and less noticed over a long time period, tobacco should then be labeled “public enemy number one”; and the government should, as they do in Russia, enter into a direct campaign to encourage voluntary suppression and discourage its use.
In the same psychological vein, smoking and drug usages of various kinds can be considered a masochistic perversion; there is always a direct or indirect subconscious reaction connected with the sexual mechanism which occurs when any foreign substance (or thing), is introduced into the human anatomy, and which cannot be considered normal, such as eating or breathing.
Smoking, therefore, demands a double indemnity; the smoker pays, not only in his general health, but is continuously destroying his moral character by this constantly repeated subconscious perversion; i.e., he knows that it is wrong and gets a vicarious kick out of doing wrong as a means of getting even for various ego deflations which he has suffered; or he may be punishing himself (self-flagellation) for his various failures and weaknesses. Flagellation is a known sex perversion.
Complete analysis is difficult and complicated but, as a whole, such devices as smoking should be considered as a constant source of stimulation for these various destructive subconscious mechanisms.
Liquors and tobaccos do produce large governmental revenues therefore these should be increased. However, neither liquor nor tobacco should be prohibited; instead, a sensible long-term campaign of public education should be entered into which would enable future generations to more nearly free themselves from these scourges of public addictions.
For, if man is to survive on this planet and, as he so survives becomes individually and collectively concerned with the future, then these various drug addictions must be relegated back into the dimension of normal usage — not as a collective group of agencies used in common escape mechanisms to relieve the individual from his pressurized civilization.
The problem of eliminating these various human frailties such as drug addiction, gambling, and various vices does not lie within the dimension of forced elimination or suppression; all the laws and law enforcement agencies in the world have proven quite inadequate and useless to cope with these various human derelictions. Likewise to continue on such a path of suppression will be equally sterile of results.
The only correct and intelligent answer is in education. If the growing child could be made to realize the full impact that his various life transpositions had upon his future — that he was actually making this future and that he was morally responsible to himself and to the society in which he lives, then these great human problems would begin to disappear.
As of today, no growing child lives in such an atmosphere; present-day living and educational methods are strictly reactionary and do not contain all the necessary elements of personal moral values. Nor do they contain basic psychological values which every child should have from the cradle and up through his growing years; not as a part of a credit system in some college course, but a day to day learning and usage of a psychology which would acquaint the child with the very nature of his being — the reason for all things and his position in this infinite scale.
When all these things were so compounded together with the inevitable personal results or consequences which everyone faces in his future, the child would grow up with a great sense of moral responsibility. He would know that there was either a wonderful future for himself or, upon the same wheel of karma, he would always reap the pain of incomprehensive action.
He would know that this action was as conclusive as the seasons, the rise and fall of the tides, the cyclic movements of the planets and the very stars. For indeed it is the very stuff from which he is made, and was so ordered by he himself, and only he can change it.
Thus the child would grow, his life not a reactionary fear-filled day by day life of grasping selfish attitudes, but a comprehensive long-range plan of life, which would unfold day by day in the full richness of infinite supply and, in this abundance, he would not crave with false appetites nor would he try to relieve these appetites with substitutes.
He would know the true meaning of cause and effect, of good and evil, his religion would not be one of some age-old mystic cult; but instead, would become a scientific composition of elements and factors which are a part and function of this Infinite Creative Intelligence. Life would become an active ever-expanding participation in this Creation, not ending in some drug-steeped hell-hole of iniquity.
Let us then give all possible aid to this common cause of freedom, mental and spiritual emancipation from the carnal lusts of a material world.
Excerpt from Infinite Contact