Original subtitles

Hey kiddies gather around

the man with the goodies is here.

Here's a little beauty from me you youty,

just inhale and sniff, it is airplane glue.

Oh whiff man and you.

Isn't it true that sniffing glue

can damage your liver and kidneys?

Cool it kid, looky

amphetamines, benny's, dexy's, meth.

They say amphetamines can

cause something like schizophrene.

Schizophrene, in most cases it does not last.

Cool it kid.

Now for the bobs, neato, nice easy downers.

With drawls from barbiturates can cause convulsions.

Will you convulse yourself outta here?

Grass, anything wrong with pot?

They're not sure yet, they just started studying about it.

Worry wart.

Dig everybody, LSD.

Bad trips and a chance of chromosome damage.

How do yo know you got chromosomes?

Everything you got there can hurt you, can't it?

Sure kid, why do you think they call it dope.

Hey where's everybody going?

Mitch is all business.

The free ride is over if David

wants more reds it'll cost him.

He'll have to come up with the bread.

How that's his business.

Everyone else is doing it.

If David wants to be one of the crowd

he'll have to fall in line.

David doesn't want to be left out,

to lose his new found friends

and he does consider Henry and Mitch his friends.

He assures them he"ll get the money.

He saved his allowance but it wasn't enough.

He started to hoard the money his mother gave him

for juice with his school lunch.

And he went without.

And he began to steal coins from his mothers purse.

Pooling all the money he could lay his hands on.

His allowance, his lunch money,

and what he could pilfer,

David soon has saved several dollars.

And when his mother treats him

to a movie he adds this money as well.

By now he has enough for a sizable score.

David's eager to see Mitch.

And Henry agrees to take him to a place

where his brother often hangs out with

his friends to smoke pot or drop some pills.

Turn on.

What's going on?

Beats me.

It's Karen.

What happened?

She must have ODed.

Is she dead?

Yeah, come on.

But she was Mitch's girl shouldn't we.

Look don't you fink, don't you dare fink.

The next day school,

going to classes, being with

the other kids is a nightmare for David.

Pretending nothing had happened while carrying

the burden of his terrible knowledge.

He is disturbed, shaken, he's afraid

but he doesn't know what to do.

He feels he must tell someone what he knows

and yet he doesn't want to rat on his new friends.

Henry realizes that David is up tight about the whole thing.

He tries to put him at ease, he even offers

him a couple of reds for free to make

his problems go away but David declines.

Mitch has been arrested, busted.

They're taking him away.

Someone had talked, someone had told about Karen.

She hadn't been able to get a big enough

or quick enough high, she had taken

an overdose Mitch had been supplying her.

The thoughts are whirling around in Davids head.

Henry, Karen, Mitch, the realization

of the grave consequences of getting mixed

up with drugs and narcotics crowds in on him.

Hey good catch.

Yeah.

That's one way of getting it around.

What?

Narcotics information.

Did you read it?

No.

Why not, you might learn something.

Like what?

Like what's it's all about.

How come you know so much about it?

I was a user, no more I quite

before I got hooked for good.

I found out the facts about drugs.

It's right here.

Let's take a walk.

You know to be a user and not to be a user

is one of the most important decisions

you'll ever have to make.

And the decisions yours and yours alone.

Isn't it worth getting at the truth before making it?

Yeah, I guess so.

Once you've turned on you don't know

anymore when you get really hooked,

when it becomes impossible for you to stop.

The best thing is never to start,

second best of you're on something get off now and stay off.

Yeah if it's hard stuff but just smoking grass,

that's no worse than smoking cigarettes

or taking a drinK that's supposed to be bad

for you to but people still do it so why not pot?

Oh come on don't give me that you know better.

Sure smoking's bad for you,

sure drinking too much can mess you up everybody

knows that but is that any reason to start

on one more stupid hangup like smoking gras or turning on?

What's so bad about pot?

Okay let's go over it together.

Marijuana, pot is a weed that grows

wild in many parts of the world.

It's an Indian hemp plant called cannabis sativa.

All of it, the leaf, the stem,

and the seeds can be used for smoking.

The effects on a smoker depends

on the quality and the amount of pot smoked.

Everyone reacts in a different way to it

and there's no telling how it will effect you.

You lose touch with the real world,

your senses become distorted and you can't function

normally and your judgment of what you're

doing becomes faulty and that can be very dangerous.

Pot may not be physically addictive like

the hard stuff but you come to depend on it,

after a while you just gotta have it.

In that way it is like smoking cigarettes.

Have you ever seen a heavy smoker trying to quit?

Well it's like that, only more so, much more so.

And as for your drinking bit pot can make you

act just as rattle brained as if you were drunk.

If you blow pot regularly after a while

you get a real I don't care attitude

about everything, just think about what would happen

if everyone had that kind of an attitude.

There are times when everyone of us has

to depend on someone else, I'm sure you've had to.

Suppose they had the I don't care attitude

of a pot smoker when you needed them.

Some scientists who have studied the effects

of pot smoking say it's very bad for you.

Others say it's not, but one thing

they do agree on, it isn't good for you.

We'll have to wait for more tests

before we'll know just how bad it is.

If you blow pot you take a chance

of blowing your whole future.

What's the sense in doing that?

But isn't it good for something?

Negative man, marijuana has no medical

use like pills do for instance.

Yeah, what about pills?

Doctors give them to people,

there can't be any harm in them.

Depends.

Not when they're prescribed by

a doctor to help cure some illness.

There's a big fat difference between

taking drugs on prescription to get well

and taking them for kicks to get high.

A doctor has had years of training,

when he gives you a pill he knows why you need it,

he knows what and how much to give you,

he knows what it'll do to you.

What do you think a dealer knows about

things like that, his lack of knowledge may cost you.

Pills and caps fall into two main categories,

amphetamines uppers and barbiturates downers.

Uppers are stimulants directly affect

your central nervous system, your brain and spinal cord.

They come in many shapes and colors with slang names

such as benny's, dexy's, and harts.

Often they're bought on the street rolled in tin foil.

One of the most dangerous, mephedrone,

also called meth or speed comes in both tablet

and powder form.

It's very, very true that speed kills, it has many times.

Under a doctors care amphetamines and barbiturates

are used to treat various medical problems.

But taken for kicks it's another story.

Unchecked abuse may lead to dependency, even addiction.

The user becomes confused, aggressive,

irrational, and reckless.

In bad cases it may even lead to a serious mental disorder.

Barbiturates, downers, are depressants.

The opposite of uppers and even more dangerous.

One of the most dangerous is seconal, reds.

There are many downers on the market

with slang names such as reds, yellows,

pink ladies, blue heavens, and rainbows.

Downers are addictive, you have to have more

and more of the drug because your body

gets used to it until you may well take an overdose, OD.

More people died from downer ODs

in the United States one year than were killed by guns.

Sure popping pills may feel great

at the moment but in the end it'll destroy you.

A dealer will try to get you hooked on something

that will make you come back to him, like reds.

He'll tell you that you'll get

a bigger high from stronger stuff.

LSD, even heroin, it becomes easier

to go onto the next step all the time.

LSD is a very powerful and very destructive hallucinogen.

It comes in tablet or powder form

or as a liquid and it is most often taken by mouth,

perhaps over a sugar cube.

The effect on the mind is frightening,

completely unpredictable.

The trip can be the hope for heaven.

Or it can be a hell of horrors

from which you may never return.

A lot of young people have

become permanently deranged through

a single terrifying trip.

Or have destroyed themselves while freaking out.

Neither LSD nor heroin has any real medical uses.

Heroin addiction is the end of the road for the user.

The way back is almost impossible.

Withdrawal from the deadly narcotic

is extremely dangerous and painful.

A heroin high could put you six feet under.

And think about this, nearly every

heroin addict began by blowing pot.

And every last one of them never

thought that he'd go onto the hard stuff.

That's something that happens to the other guy.

And here's something else to consider.

From pot to heroin, it's against the law to posses it,

to sell it, to give it away, even to be

in a place where illegal drugs or narcotics are being used.

You can be arrested, get yourself

a police record that may hurt you all your life

and it's just plain stupid to blame

the police officer like some heads do.

He's only doing the job that we

the people have hired him to do.

Upholding the laws that protect us all.

It makes a lot more sense to help him.

How?

Well you may feel that you don't

want to tell on your friends

but maybe that kind of loyalty's misplaced.

The fact is the dealer who wants

to turn you on is not your friend.

He will abandon you at once if there's trouble.

Drug friend ships are not real friendships.

Who's really your friend,

the one that wants to get you on self destructive drugs,

who's eager to mess up your life.

Or the one who wants to steer you clear of them,

to point out the very real dangers to you, honestly.

Using narcotics or abusing drugs is nothing

but a cop out from life, an escape

from having to face up to everyday problems.

Everyone has hangups and problems,

growing up means learning to cope with them.

They don't go away by themselves

and drugs only make them worse.

By using them we only deny ourselves

the ability to become mature

and responsible and have a chance of real happiness.

Drug addicts on the average live 20 to 25

years less than they would if

they didn't pollute their bodies and minds with narcotics.

We all know how the earth is being polluted.

You don't believe in pollution do you,

polluting the water and the soil and the air.

Of course not.

You want it stopped?

Sure.

What are you doing about it?

You're kidding, what can I do?

Well for one thing, one very important

thing you can decided not to pollute your own body.

The pollution that's being blown

into the atmosphere everyday,

fouling the air we breath is no different

from the pollution you draw into

your lungs when you smoke pot.

The sewage being dropping into the water polluting

and poisoning it is really no different

than the drugs you put into your body

when you drop pills or acid.

If you had an aquarium with beautiful fish

in it you wouldn't pour poison into it would you?

Then why put poison into your own body?

You never really know what's in

the drugs or narcotics you get.

Most dealers don't know themselves.

They're in it to make a buck,

a lot of stuff has all kinds of junk mixed

into it to make it stretch further.

You can be sure of only one thing,

it will pollute your body and your mind.

If you're smart you'll say no to drugs,

you'll say no to this chemical cop out.

Yeah but who wants to be called chicken?

Chicken who's really chicken?

The guy who must go along with the crowd at any cost,

or the guy who has the guts to take

a stand for what he knows is right

even if it's not the popular thing to do?

Think about it man, think about it.

David is impressed.

He has been given a lot to think about.

He's promised his mother to pick up his brother.

Eddy at the grade school, his old school.

But when he gets there he doesn't see him around

he learns that Eddy and a couple of his friends

went on down to a construction site

where they're putting in storm drains.

David goes down to get him.

David is shaken, not Eddy, not his little brother.

This could be the start, sniffing.

Whether it's glue or an aerosol can or what have you.

It's just as bad, just as dangerous

as the rest of the drug scene.

It to can cause permanent damage, it can even kill.

There are lots of things David has to tell his brother.

Drugs and narcotics not only turn you on, they turn on you.

Don't pollute your body and your mind with them.

It's your decision, just remember

there are a 1,000 reasons why users end up losers.

You are looking at a traveler

who just bought a ticket for a very special kind of trip.

The cost, a few dollars and his mind.

Over which he will shortly have very little or no control.

Now most of his preparations have been made

and he's just about ready to go.

He won't have to leave this room if he doesn't want to

but he'll travel so far that

he may get lost and never come back.

Transportation of the fantastic

and frightening territory of interspace,

courtesy of the most powerful mind

altering drug ever discovered.

Destination unknown, curtesy LSD-25.

My full chemical name is.

Dextrol lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate 25.

But as everyone knows I'm called LSD

for short though I'm also called acid

and by some highly unflattering names

by those who wish I'd never been discovered.

Right now some 200 micrograms of my substance

has just entered his body

and already my potent molecules

are on their way to his brain where

they will trigger some very special chemistry.

And in just a few minuets now I will

show him glimpses of distorted beauty

or tumble him into a terrifying private hell.

But at just this moment neither

he nor I know the direction or destination

of the trip we're about to take together.

"Round round out of your mind."

"You think you're seeing things I know you're blind."

"A million bright colors explode in your head."

"Today you're just high tomorrow you're dead."

"Round round round round."

Round, round out of your mind.

That's right.

And as you might imagine not all

of the people who know about me

approve of what I am or what I do.

These people for example have seen

my effects and think I'm a total disaster.

But they know to that I am part of the scene

and that I can be purchased much more

easily than you might think.

Well I think it's pretty easy

because, well like this one last night

this one dude walked up

and he just handed me some so I just went ahead and took it.

You can be standing on a street corner

and somebody will approach you.

It's too easy to get acid,

there's too many beeboppers running around town.

I can get acid by simply calling a friend

and I can get as much or as little

as I want within a very short amount of time.

Acid for me is very easy to get,

I can get it from anywhere, from four blocks

to ten block of my house in about 20 minutes.

See what did I tell ya?

Kids know.

Of course I'm not exactly the exclusive

property of young people but kids know a lot about me.

More than most older people for example.

They're damaged for life,

they're brains are a wreck,

they go into institutions, they're through

for the rest of their life.

And I read some silly things about kids falling

out of trees and painting them selves green

and yellow and it's rather stupid to me.

It's no good.

They're taking it in sugar cubes,

it's being dropped into their punch.

Well truthfully my friend I know nothing about it,

only what I read in the paper

or what I see on television and that's about all.

We gotta do something about this, don't you think so?

But I don't know, I don't know with these.

I've become a favorite topic

of conversation almost everywhere.

At the mere mention of my three letter name

is enough to send certain rioters running

to turn out sure selling articles on how horrible I am.

As publishers know I'm good copy.

And since there's so much information

and misinformation about me it's

easy to keep the LSD pot boiling.

Well that sort of thing is bad for

my image as the advertising people say.

Sensational, sure fire in the paper backs

but so much of it lacks the saving virtue of truth.

There hasn't been a case reported yet

where I poisoned anyone.

But speaking frankly a lot of my most ardent

supporters are bad for my image to.

Like these tree clowns from Southern California

who are planning the beginning

of something they call acid city.

So that's the scene.

FolLks like these who love me

and think I belong in everyone's breakfast cereal.

And way over in the other direction the fright boys

with their sure sell magazines and comic books.

Things being what they are you really

can't blame me for wanting to put the record straight.

It is as they say time for the facts.

High time.

It's hard really to put it in word form.

You can't really tell a person what it's like

unless you've had the experience for yourself.

It just, well it's different.

Someone like John Glen trying to explain

what he saw in outer space,

I mean it's a very personal thing.

It not easy to describe.

No I'm not easy to describe.

I'm a complicated thing

and I'm here in complicated times and in complicated places.

But now let me tell you what I really am.

And what I really do.

Chemically I look like this.

Atoms of oxygen linked with carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen.

Much more complicated then some people seem to think.

In fact the slightest chemical structure

may result in profound changes in my potency.

As certain black armature chemists have found out.

Actually I'm not very spectacular to look at.

I'm colorless, odorless and tasteless.

In fact I'm a kind of a nothing.

But I'm one of the most powerful nothings

that ever came down the chemical road.

Just one of my drops can be enough for 500 average doses.

I'm so powerful that I exert an effect in doses

smaller than such potent drugs as strychnine or cyanide.

My discoverer found that out back in 1943

when he accidentally inhaled a microscopic spec of me

and then took to his bed with hallucinations.

How can I tell you how really powerful I am?

The head of a pin can hold enough of me to send

a room full of people out of their minds.

A dose for one, a point of a pin holds

plenty for a solo trip.

20 doses can be put under a stamp,

an eye dropper can contain enough for 10,000 doses.

I'm measured in millionths of a gram

called micro rams, or gammas.

So tiny that even a precision laboratory scales

like this can't begin to measure me accurately.

With just a very few micro grams

of me inside the body colors, shapes, smells, textures,

the whole range of things that can be seen,

heard, smelled, touched,

and tasted take on incredible distortions

which seem absolutely and totally real.

With just a few micro grams of me

all sorts of hallucinations are possible.

I couldn't see anything except colors

and I thought well you know this is supposed

to be reality but it wasn't,

it wasn't anything except just things that weren't object.

You know after a while you don't know how you are

and you don't know who the other person is.

Happening, and it's happening so fast

and you can't stop it and you just

can't do anything, you just have

to stay there and go through it.

With my help all kinds of things are possible.

The most dangerous act can look

attractive and easy to accomplish.

Because I can make those sparkling

lights look colorful and inviting.

A moving tapestry which can beckon

and lure a traveler to join them.

Well that's just a rough idea

of what a few micrograms of me can do.

How about the same amount that

you saw on the point of the pin, remember?

But in spite of my overwhelming

power I have yet to kill anyone from an overdose.

They don't think I'm philologically addicting.

And when I'm swallowed I disappear

because they haven't yet perfected

a good field test to detect me inside the body.

All together I'm one of the most

perplexingly powerful drugs conceivable.

You're doctor can't prescribe me,

your druggist can't sell me.

And very few scientists are able or willing to test me

and the pharmaceutical companies won't make me.

And about the only labs I show up in anymore

are the crime labs in police headquarters

because I am so perplexingly powerful that I'm illegal.

But as narcotic officers know so well I keep showing up.

In spite of the laws.

Because if you have the right ingredients

I'm not too hard to manufacture.

And the black market boys have set up

their armature laboratories in some strategic locations.

Like this one, severed with a warrant

and then raided just a while ago.

Armature acid made in armature labs by armature chemists.

When I'm compounded in dirty labs

like this it isn't surprising

that I'm often contaminated with other substances.

On the consumer level that means

that when an LSD travel agent sells

a cap or two the customer can't trust

the label because there isn't any label.

So how do yo know what you're getting?

You don't know unless you take it

whether it's good or it's bad,

you just have to trust your source.

Well when you take it you find out.

Good acid, bad acid but always unpredictable acid.

I'm around, part of the scene as I said.

And on streets like this, and this, and this, and this.

Transactions involving me take place all the time.

Illegal of course but my tabs

and caps and sugar cubes that dissolve in

your mind as well as your mouth are selling everyday.

So drop a cap of me and join the mind expanding

world where colors and sounds and smells

and tastes and people all take

on new dimensions and new qualities.

I'm the worlds original instant relief drug.

Drop a cap on me man.

And drop out.

But watch it because the trip can be a trap to.

You never know where a ticket with me will take you.

Where are you?

Stop that man.

Where are you man?

Stop that.

Let me give you an idea,

just the barest idea of what a bum trip it can be like.

Voices curtesy of those who've been there.

God no!

No, no, no!

Get me out of this terrible place!

Get me out of here!

Help me!

Oh God help me!

Utterly fantastic, utterly terrifying,

utterly powerful and utterly unpredictable.

I've even been know to carry a passenger

inside the pulsing redness of his own beating heart.

And leave him there.

Oh most people survive even a really bad trip.

And with an injection of one

of the most powerful tranquilizers

known they can get safely back to reality.

Just relax.

But not all.

Not all.

Because you see it's true

that trippers have injured themselves.

Sometimes seriously.

And one of the most terrifying things of all is true to.

A bum trips hallucinations can

recur at anytime and all their original intensity

up to a year after the original dose.

Some call it an after flash.

And it's not fun at all.

Once I've been swallowed it's practically

impossible to trace me inside the body.

So not even the coroner knows how

to tell whether to not I was apart of this scene.

Twisting the drivers brain cells

until he tripped out through the windshield.

LSD rescue.

And it's true that the effects

and after effects of bad trips can be

so sever that special organizations

like San Francisco's LSD rescue have been set up.

This guy knows.

He called LSD rescue 24 hours ago.

And he's just about got himself under control now.

But for an increasing number of trippers this to is true.

Because the ultimate destination with me

can be and has been here in the morgue.

LSD user hangs self.

LSD user commits suicide.

Yes, it's true.

And so the last boys heard of the ultimate destination

can be and has been the autopsy surgeons.

The body is that of a well developed,

well nourished teenage male, appearing the stated age.

Rigor mortis is present throughout

and livor is present over the dorsal aspects of the body.

And so I'm depressed and I'm embarrassed.

Because so many of the worlds odd balls

have adopted me as their special gimmick.

I am too powerful and I am too important

to join these con artist as part of acid city.

Portrait of a traveler about to take a trip,

and his trip is just now starting.

He's stuck with me now and what

we may do together for the next few hours.

I'm not vicious by nature.

But I'm not harmless either.

When you tinker with your brain by altering

it's natural processes with

an unknown dose of an unknown drug

you have to take your chances.

But curiously enough the kind of trip

he'll take won't depend upon my chemistry as much as his.

Because you see it's my real secret

that I strip away the layers and layers of ego.

The protective security blanket that shelters you all.

And I can bring him into the incredible

world of his own deep brain, dream scape.

Of course when he actually gets

there he may be terrified by what he sees.

But that's his problem.

Not mine.

It can't happen to me,

that's what you said wasn't it Bill?

But it can and just did and you're not quite sure why.

Let's see if we can find out.

Not too many minutes ago that young woman

and her child were happy and healthy.

Now they're young bodies are crushed and wracked with pain.

Maybe they'll live and maybe they'll die.

But one things sure, the next few minutes,

hours, or maybe days their lives will hang

in the balance and you'll have to live

out those minutes, hours,

and days knowing you were responsible.

The police will measure out the skid marks,

determine where you applied the brakes,

give you a sobriety test

and it will all go into a report

that will be reviewed in court.

Maybe you'll be found guilty,

maybe you won't but you'll never

out live the memory of waiting.

Waiting to find out if the mother

and daughter will live or die.

Then the police are at you with questions.

Where had you been, had you been drinking,

will you submit to a sobriety test?

Sure why not, after all you'd only had a few beers.

You're not drunk, of course your not drunk.

Not in the common sense of the word.

But you're driving ability was measurably impaired.

How could it be, you feel fine.

But what you didn't know was

that it only takes a few beers to take

the keen edge off your driving performance

and slow your reaction time.

When ethyl alcohol, which is the foundation

of all liquor enters the circulatory system

through the stomach it's oxidized by the liver

and turned into heat energy in the form of calories.

Unfortunately the liver can only process

about three eighths of an ounce of alcohol per hour.

That's about the amount in three quarters

of a shot glass of whisky or a short beer.

When more alcohol is taken the liver

is unable to process it and it passes into

the blood stream and is carried to all parts of the body.

As the percentage of alcohol begins

to build up in the blood stream

the first part of your nervous system

to be affected is your judgment center

located in the frontal lobe of the brain.

This is the area of the brain

that determines right from wrong.

You see alcohol is not a stimulant,

it's a sedative, a depressant.

Oh sure the first few drinks

make you feel more alive

and responsive but actually as the alcohol enters

the blood stream it slows down normal operation

of the heart and nerve centers

and depresses the inhibitory mechanisms of the brain.

It removes inhabitants and social restraints.

This is what gives us the feeling of stimulation.

You have more assurance but less self control.

It may start innocently enough, a few beers with the gang.

It is a social custom of our time.

But today that social custom is invading

our society at a younger age then ever before.

The few drinks that the social drinker may

take don't seem to present a serious danger

but the trouble with drinking

and driving is that it is always too late

when the emergency arises

and our reactions are too slow to avoid disaster.

It is readily agreed by authorities

and tests that driving skills

are to a degree a matter of habit.

Built up over a long periods of practice.

It has also bee proven that

the latest driving skills mastered

at the first to go when under the influence of liquor.

There fore the older, more experienced driver

is less likely to have his skills

seriously impair than the younger, less experienced driver.

One must be able to judge speed and distance,

follow traffic patterns, make necessary adjustments

and be able to react quickly to emergencies.

After a few drinks the good driver

is no longer capable of doing this.

He has become a poor driver

and is a danger to himself and others.

This happened to you, didn't it Bill?

Sure you passed your sobriety test,

they can't convict you on drunk driving can they?

But you'll always have to face

the fact that those beach party beers

were a contributing factor in your accident.

If you hadn't had then you might

have hit the break pedal a second or two earlier.

Those skid marks on the asphalt

would have stopped on the right side,

not the wrong side of that young woman and her daughter.

The report just came through.

The little girl died on the way to the hospital

and the mother will probably never walk again.

No matter how you're trial comes out

you'll always have to live with those facts won't you Bill?

A child dead, a mother crippled.

Not a pleasant future to face at the age of 18.

They come in all different shapes and sizes.

And range in age from teeny hoppers.

To 19 year old.

But just like in the old days teenagers

have always shared one thing in common.

They've always found a unique way

to express themselves as individuals.

And this of course would be called group self expression.

Today just like always clothes have been

the groovy way of really expressing yourself.

And teenagers can always be counted

on to do something very real and very self expressive.

There are some girls who express themselves simple look.

Others do so in highly feminized slacks.

And for hemlines well this may be the long and short of it.

But how much shorter can a skirt get?

Hair has always been very important.

Yes even with boys.

It's been very short, and even Longer than a Beetles.

But girls have always had a lot more

ways to express themselves through their hair.

Why they can change it's color completely.

And they can even simplify the entire thing

and just go out to a store

and buy some hair in any color they like.

They can curl it.

They can wave it.

And they can even iron it so it comes out nice and straight.

Split ends and all.

Certain hair styles, they make it necessary

to take a good look to see which

is the girl and which is the boy.

That's not true for all boys.

Especially for those who are trying

so desperately to prove their manhood.

However the more personal the more individual way

to prove you're man hood was to play chicken.

And at one time a chicken run was

considered the best way to prove manhood.

Dead or alive.

For girls the matter of being chicken

and proving yourself as a woman is still frequently based

on accepting this kind of dare from a so called friend.

Yes even adults admit it, growing up isn't easy.

Especially if you're trying to keep up with the dares

and fads of some of the more advanced trends.

Two of the more advanced fads have to do with drugs.

So either you wanna be down with it,

please just try it once okay?

Now there's a good argument for you.

Why with the help of a good,

kind friend you can be turned on,

make the scene, blow grass, smoke reefers,

or pot, joints, or Mary Jane's.

Those are just a few of the cool,

groovy names for marijuana.

And if grass doesn't make it for you baby

and especially if you need to be in.

Well you can always drop a cap of acid.

Now that's the real stuff.

Very, very cool.

Very, very groovy.

Now everybody who takes it admits

there is always a risk of a bad trip, a bummer.

A freak out, even a flip out.

But why be lame baby, give yourself real kick.

Yes a kick in the head.

What do Americas leading scientists, doctors,

and psychiatrists working with people taking LSD say.

As we see it from a typical Psychiatric

ward LSD is certainly much more than a mere fad.

Right now we have over a dozen people hospitalized

because of acute symptoms resulting

directly from their taking LSD.

Bizarre fatal accidents and suicides

has also occurred in LSD users.

Because of this we say that LSD is not just a fad,

people are seriously disturbed, some even dead.

It all began in a laboratory very much like this one.

In 1938 doctor Albert Hofmann

in Switzerland was looking for new drugs

in the treatment of migraine headaches.

He had been studying substances

that came from the mold that grows on rye plants.

Now it turned out that these substances

were of no use in the treatment of migraines headaches

but subsequent investigations showed

that they are very fascinating indeed

in the changes they produce in our mental state.

Normal people react to LSD by seeing

strange patterns of wildly moving colors.

Time may appear to stand completely still.

Faces may appear and then melt away.

And at another times the subject may recall

with terrifying detail incidents

that are long, long forgotten.

At the same time there is often

a loss of the normal cause

and effect relationships

of things going on in the environment.

And this leads to a distortion of judgment.

Never the less in spite of the risks

the word was out, LSD was it.

One pill and all unhappiness would vanish.

The real meaning of existence

would become quickly clear, such nonsense.

Parents deprived of LSD did not understand.

Many wild and very unscientific

claims have been made about LSD.

I've spoken to a large number of young people

asking them why do you take LSD?

They've given me a variety of answers

the most frequent are the following.

I took it the first time because I was curious.

Under LSD gods not a far away idea

he's something that's right

inside you that you're experiencing now.

I took LSD for a kick.

Man LSD is like a vitamin for

the brain, I mean to expand your mind.

LSD stimulated creativity in the brain.

In other words it expands your

thought processes so you can take in more.

We gave a series of 50 tests

to people before and after LSD.

We found that at the end of six months

following their LSD taking

that they were no more creative when

we measured them then they were before they took the LSD.

However their feeling, their inner

feeling of subjective of creativity was there.

This means perhaps that they may have

an impression of creativity but not creativity itself.

Creativity is 90 percent perspiration

and only ten percent inspiration.

And LSD doesn't enhance ones desire to perspire.

LSD is a really groovy way

to find out about the things around you.

LSD helps me understand the whole world better.

LSD helps you to understand your own mind,

it releases your mind to you.

LSD us a way about finding out about yourself.

While there are many things that we don't know about LSD

there are few that we do know

and perhaps the most important one that we do know

is that it is absolutely unpredictable

who will have a bad experience from LSD

or when they will have it.

Some people have a bad experience

the first time they take the drug,

others take it 30, 60, or even

100 times before their bad trip.

And the bad trip, instant insanity.

Often a never never land of no return.

No, it's coming, no get away, get away, get away.

Don't worry.

No, no, get away, get away.

It's coming for me, take me away.

No, no, get away.

Gotta help me, help me.

This girl is obviously acutely disturbed.

She will be in the hospital for a few week or a few months.

The chances are that she will get well again.

At least well enough to leave the ward.

Whether she will ever be the same again,

have the same personality, the same ambitions,

the same abilities to work, to love,

to get along with other people,

that we won't know for along time.

Some others who take LSD will

have even more tragic freakouts.

And there's no way to tell which ones these will be.

Lose all kind of reality.

Step into flight from cliffs and high windows.

With real life, permanent, non psychedelic.

Other trippers, an attempt to merge

their beings with large automobiles.

Unfortunate not because LSD

is wicked or sinful of itself

but because it is such an extremely dangerous drug.

A drug who's effects are so unpredictable.

A drug which so often causes sever long lasting damage.

It's up to you.

Taking LSD is much the same as playing Russian roulette.

You spin the barrel with one bullet in it.

And you take a chance.

Any one shot or several.

Maybe an exciting and harmless kick.

But each time you try the odds keep growing against you.

Until.

Until that final kick.

It's up to you.

If I can make an impression on one,

just one of you kids that's here, that's really all I want.

Because if somebody somewhere had made an impression on me

maybe I wouldn't have done it.

This is Florrie Fisher's story

told in her own words to

a group of New York city high students

typical of teenagers across the country.

It's not a pretty story.

It's a story of heart break and hell.

It's a story of 23 wasted years

in the life of a drug addict.

17 of those years behind bars.

It's a true story.

Said something wrong, he said I was a drug addict,

well I was not a drug addict, I am a drug addict.

I haven't used anything in over four years

but I never forget that I am a drug addict

and I wanna thank you very, very much

for letting me talk to you because this is my life line.

I have to talk about it everyday you know,

I'll be very honest with you I never have days

that I'm just completely like everybody else,

every time my mother aggravates me

and she's 80 years old and my dads 89 and god bless them,

they aggravate the hell out of me.

You know I say oh I wish I could get high

but it's a feeling that I have inside, gut level.

I'd like to be high, I'm not gonna lie

to you it's a great feeling,

you smoke marijuana and it's great.

You go further than that it's even greater.

Gut level I like that feeling but intellectually

I now know I can't smoke one stick of pot

I can't take one snort of horse,

I can't take one needle of cocaine

because I am an addictive personality

and that's all I need, is one of anything.

You know I need one dress, if I happen

to like this dress in tan,

I buy the same dress in green, and black,

I mean this is the type of personality I am.

The world is full of it.

Now I know you kids, in order to have

the ends justify the means, have read,

have talked, have heard marijuana is not addictive.

Well that's true, marijuana is not addictive,

the doctors are telling you the

truth marijuana is not physically addictive

but it is so psychologically addictive that you cannot.

And before I go any further I'll tell you people

say give me statistics, the hell with statistics,

I don't want a piece of paper with numbers on it,

I am unto myself a statistic,

the only statistic I need along with me 23 years

of living with nothing but gutter hypes

and junkies, I have 1,000s of friends if you will,

they're all junkies and there isn't one,

not one, who didn't start smoking marijuana.

Now I talk to kids and they say well miss Fisher

your talk is not pertinent to me

because my culture is just smoking marijuana.

Well you know what, my culture just smoked marijuana

until we got on horse and you know you're young

you're beautiful with young youth

and along with young youth comes a curiosity

of young youth and if you smoke a stick of pot

and you feel good who here can tell me

that if somebody says man that was a gas,

you ain't lived until you took a snort of horse,

don't you want to try it?

You know it can't happen to you,

you're not gonna get hooked with one shot,

and you're not gonna get hooked with one shot,

and you over there with the beads

on you're not gonna get hooked with one shot

but it only takes one shot to take a second shot.

And that second shot goes into a third

and then you get like me, you start needing 185 dollars

a day and you know what, the bank presidents

don't have that kind of money at

their command so now here I am.

I'm a girl from a nice middle to upper class Jewish family,

I have a sister and brother who are

the pillars of society, I'm the baby.

I was very much loved by my parents.

I won't go into it now but I blame my mother

and father for loving me too much,

I lied from the time I could talk,

I was a pathological liar.

And all of this was a lead up into my addictive personality.

Now I was in the country, the Jewish.

Catskills and I met a,

what you call a hippie now was a zoot suitor then,

you know the whole bit with the peg pants,

long jacket, and the swinging key chain,

the mustache and the sideburns.

And I thought he was just gorgeous

and I conned my mother into going home

and letting me stay at a girlfriends who's parents

had their own little place in the mountains

so I spent the weekend with this guy

and he was smoking marijuana

and I thought he was just so marvelous,

anything he wanted to do I wanted

to identify with him and I did it.

I'd never heard of marijuana before

and incidentally you school kids, don't think

well education, I'm a college graduate, it doesn't matter.

Drugs, marijuana a rose by any other name,

well drug is the most negative working thing I had ever met.

It sucks every part of you up in a negative way.

Now if you all sit complacently it can happen to you,

it can and it will, you girls, you Negros,

I don't know whether you live in Harlem

but I know a Harlem that you kids don't know.

I know a Harlem where I laid on dope street,

I'm sure it's still dope street, 117th street,

I know the sports bar is closed, I know all these places.

I cop there, all the cocaine, all the caps,

all the 25 dollar half loads

and the 50 dollar bundles, I cop from everybody

and there I was sleeping in a bathroom nodding

out where any man could make me his prey

and you know what it wouldn't make any difference

because I didn't know, I was zunked.

I didn't have to do this,

this is something drugs lead me to.

Now I married a man, this boy,

you know he smoked marijuana,

this was his only crime, he was a young kid,

he had two years of college and you know what I did?

I made a pimp out of him, an 18 karat pimp.

I was a call girl, I was young, I was fly,

I was pretty and I was out selling my body.

Kept going to jail and you know, ten years later

I had to be ten dollars cheaper

and I want a call girl, I became a madam.

Then I became a street whore.

Then I'd been in every department store,

my mug is in every post office, it isn't now thank God

but it was but there was no place that

I could go and I kept going to jail.

I was busted three months after I got my first habit

and I was sentenced to one to three years,

that's pen indef, in the house of detention

in Greenwich village I'm sure you all know

where it was and I spent 24 months there

on my first offense for possession of a needle.

I came out and what do you do?

You know you're hooked, physiologically

you're hooked, you're in jail,

you're out of jail, you're using.

If you're not you're thinking of how quickly

you can use and when.

Everyday that I spent in jail I dreamt

about the time I could cook my breakfast

up in a tea spoon and I'm sure everyone

of you has been exposed to that type of talk.

This is a shot of heroin.

Now I came out of jail, I went back to jail,

I came out of jail, I went back to jail,

I've done four years, five years,

in the house of detention I have 12 years racked up

in 30 days, in 90 days, in a year,

in three years, I have four years in Bedford.

I was in Raiford and I did a year

I came out and in 1955 I got married.

October 16th and on my honey moon two days later

in Key West I was busted and I went to jail for four years.

Well in all that time my husband

and I the only love making we ever

did was our letter once a week where we swore undying love.

You know I haven't seen my husband,

I came out, he met me and he kinda dissipated himself.

It's not important but the thing is there was my life

and you know something, I know

that everyone of you kids feel great.

You know, she's 50 years old,

how does she identify with you?

I do identify with you you know why?

I'm a 50 year old hippie, I think exactly like you think.

The only thing is you think it and I have thought it,

done it, acted upon it, and suffered by it.

Now you know you can be smart or you

can be stupid and I tell you if you smoke marijuana,

if you take speed, if you use any exhilarant,

or any depressant, you're foolish

because you can't get away with it.

I assure you I'm a pretty smart cookie,

you know I was a confidence woman,

I built people all over the country,

I'm by any standards smart.

The only thing is I wasn't smart with dope,

I couldn't handle it and there's nobody

in the world that can handle it.

Now I can't tell you not to do it

but I can suggest to you believe it,

you're your brothers keeper

and I know the code of the streets

goes for even the squares.

You don't want to tell, you don't want to be a rat fink

but you wanna know something you've gotta

be a rat fink if you don't wanna put

your name down let me tell you something

if I had a friend who was smoking marijuana

and I knew it I wouldn't say hey Jake I'm gonna

tell on you I would take his name,

take his address, say he's smoking pot

and to use the expression of the street,

I drop a dime on him.

I put a ten cents stamp in an envelope,

put his name and address on it and drop it in the mail box.

Somebody will take it up from there, but you have to do it.

If somebody did it to me I wouldn't be here talking

to you like this, I have a father who's still living

I have a mother who's still living,

do you think this is easy for me?

My name is splashed all over the papers,

I'll be on TV national network, do you think they like it?

They don't like it but they're proud of me now

and with their old European wisdom

they said well your name was splashed

all over the papers every time you got busted,

at least no your nose is clean and you're doing something.

And this is how I kind of feel

maybe I'll use the word missionary.

If I can make an impression on one,

just one of you kids that's here,

that's really all I want

because if somebody somewhere had made an impression

on me maybe I wouldn't have done it.

Now I was talking at Norland high.

And you know what in a auditorium

that had 2,500 seats, in a school

that had almost 3,000 students

and I assume everyone of these students

had at least one parent, 50 parents showed up.

They didn't gave a damn about

their kids and you know something,

I really, maybe I'm saying the wrong thing,

I don't expect too much of you kids,

how the hell can they expect you to care

when your mother and father don't care

and they have to care because they're

the ones that have to recognize it

and I know you all talk, sure you hear

they're taking dope, their pupils are pin points,

they're on the nod, they're hanging over there,

their nose is down to the floor.

That's fine, you're taking morphine,

or you're taking heroin,

but what about the mother who says I don't

believe it I told my daughter to do the bedroom

and she's cleaning the whole house,

isn't this marvelous, she's just abounding with energy.

Well nine chances out of ten

she's abounding with Methedrine.

Speed, desoxyn, amphetamine, cocaine,

these are exhilarants and if a mother is

looking for pin pointed pupils she won't find them,

she'll find big black dilated pupils.

But if she doesn't know what can she do about it?

If a kid comes home and says mama

I'm sleeping over at Jack's house

and mama calls up and he's not at Jacks house so what?

So he comes home and he says mom

I said Jack but I really meant Jim.

Well he's not telling the truth he was out getting high,

stealing a car, laying out on the beach smoking pot.

And to use an old Jewish cliche,

from this comes the worst diseases.

Nobody can get away with it.

And you say I repeat, be a rat fink.

How the hell can I be a rat fink,

how can I get my friend picked up,

why can't you get your friend

picked up for psychiatric help?

If you don't get him picked you today

next year he's gonna be busted

and you know what in Florida for instance

where I am now it is a mandatory five year sentence

in the penitentiary for possession of one stick of pot.

Now they say if you legalized

it that would take away the intrigue,

that would take away the kabal, you know the black market.

It isn't so you know what you have in England?

It's legalized there so you have people

standing in line waiting for the drug store to open up

and what do they do there, they open up,

they sell them the stuff and they go into

the park Like Washington park or Gramercy park

and they sit there in broad daylight fixing a shot

and taking it and in front of them is five little kids

maybe two, four, six, and eight mister what are you doing?

So here you're going to grow into at society

of kids who have been exposed to main line

narcotic shooting from the time they were able to walk.

What can they possibly grow into?

All of you people who say LSD,

okay if you're emotionally stable,

you know it doesn't give you a bad trip, it's a lie.

I was thrown from a horse and I had a laminectomy

and I ended up in the San Francisco general hospital.

I was operated on by the same doctor who operated

on the late Jane Mansfield sons sultan

when he was mauled by the lion.

Well while I was there they brought in

a straight B student, 21 year old girl

from the University of Southern California,

she was part negro, part Spanish, and part Indian

and believe me she had the beauty of all three.

Well when I saw her she was in the psychiatric ward.

She had taken a trip on LSD and it was devastating,

they committed her to the psychiatric ward

on the sixth floor.

One of her college buddies came to visit her

and brought her a cube of sugar which

had LSD in it and she decided to escape.

The avenue of escape she used was

to go out the sixth floor window.

How was she going to do that,

she took one sheet and even on a king sized bed

I'm sure you all have an idea the length of a sheet.

With that length she had to tie it to the bed post

and she lowered her self out the sixth floor

so of course she dropped five stories.

When I saw her she was on a stryker frame.

If any of you remember when Kennedy broke

his back, it looks like a long spit.

You're head is held immobile by two ice prongs,

your feet are tied by traction,

and every two hours they turn you over.

This girls neck was broken in six places.

Now I found out since that they fused her spine

and her neck and she will always be stiff

but it doesn't make and difference because

she is raving maniac and her prognosis is null.

Now this is LSD and I know doctors,

and I know lawyers, and I know the most stable people

in the world that have taken trips

on LSD and are still waiting to return.

Now remember that well please.

And you must forgive me, I talk off

the top and if something comes in my mind I repeat it.

Let me repeat something to you that

I know everyone of you kids will identify with.

Damn it I did this or damn it I did that.

My older brother was always bugging me.

My sister was always bugging me.

My mother and father are always telling me what to do.

So great, rebel by all means rebel and start using pills,

start using goofballs, start using marijuana,

start using horse and then go to jail.

And then you know what, you're going

to a place like I went to.

Raiford, Florida state penitentiary,

where you're thrown into a sardine can.

Where you eat and you sleep,

and you mess on the floor

and you lay naked for male

and female guards to check up on you

and in the morning because the smell

is ridiculous they hose you out with a power hose.

You're told when to eat, what to eat,

how to eat and whet do you eat?

Beans and corn bread in the after noon.

Coffee and grits in the morning

and rice and hogshead cheese in

the night every day from Monday to Sunday.

This is what you get.

You have no pride, you ave no respect,

you're stripped of every vestige of anything

that you were given by God, is that what you want?

That's what you'll get you can't get away

with it cause I repeat I'm pretty smart

and I couldn't get away with and I am trying

my darnedest to go all over the country,

I work, I work for 52 dollars

a week in a house for retarded children

because my thing now is I have to help people.

I was helped and I'll tell you how I was helped.

I was in the house of detention right here

doing a six month sentence for being a habitual user.

Well I did my five months and I think 20 days

and I was being released the following week.

I looked outside, you know you see tenth avenue

or sixth avenue on Granite

and I said good God I have to go out on the street

and come up against all these squares,

maybe get in a cab or get in a bus or a taxi

and see these damn squares and I'm not gonna be high?

I can't do it.

So I sent out to my connection would you please

meet me with a shot, I can't make

the street seen with the squares, I gotta be loaded.

I was a good customer, you know 185 dollars

a day habit so he met me in

the rotunda of the house of detention with a shot.

I went into the phone booth

and right through my dress I took that shot,

unfortunately one of the matrons wanted

to make a phone call and she walked in and busted me.

And without ever hitting the street

I was re arrested and got another six months as a user.

So there I was doing a year without ever hitting the street.

Well I don't say God is dead.

I only say that for many, many years

we weren't on speaking terms.

But this particular day somebody was up there

and he happened to like me because

while I was looking for something

else in a magazine I stumbles on Synanon.

And then that man up stairs who liked me finally

gave me a little tip and booted me

and I wrote the pathetic letter saying

I'm 46 years old, been coming to jail for 18 years,

have been using stuff for 23 year, obviously I need help.

Obviously I can't help myself, won't you please help me?

The lawyer for Synanon came in to the house

of detention and February 11th 1964 when

I was released there are many clinics here.

They are all imitations of Synanon.

If you kids have a problem I don't say go in

and join, go in and find out what it's all about

because all the people there have

in one way or another identified with me.

They can help you, you kids need help.

I assume this is your teacher,

don't be afraid she's only there to help you, tell her.

Get up enough moxie to go and say I did something,

I'm afraid, help me.

Jail is not the answer.

No prison hospital is the answer.

Help, identification, and talking

to people who have been there and been through it.

That's the only way, you have to learn how to ask for help.

People will help you but they can't help

you unless they know you need help

and they can't know you need help if you don't ask for it.

Learn how to ask for help, you need it.

It took me 23 years but I learned how to ask for help.

I was helped and I'm trying to help you.

Wherever she goes Florrie is interested

in the comments and questions of young people

who have heard her story.

Here is a sample of some of the questions

asked by these New York city teenagers and her answers.

She will answer your questions.

Well I have a question, don't you think

you're being a bit presumptuous with us?

First of all you said that you consider us hippies.

What's your connotation for hippies?

Cause I don't think any of us are really hippies here.

Well, fine.

I don't even think anybody really knows what a hippie is.

My little catalyst here.

You're playing devils advocate, I love that.

Well I use the word hippie merely for

the purposes of identification.

What I was trying to say, I'll tell you exactly

how it is I was about 21 when they started using stuff.

When I finally got into Synanon at the tender age

of 46 I thought I was 21,

You know the false eyelashes, which I still wear,

but I don't wear the mascara with it,

I don't wear tight dresses.

I wore dresses shorter than you kids,

I really thought I was 21 my growing processing stopped.

You know and I said hippie merely

because it's a word that's very much in the papers,

on every bodies lips today.

But I don't think, well let me say

this I don't think I'm being presumptions,

I know I am not being presumptuous you know why?

All these thousands of junkie that have known

in my 23 years of hell were kids exactly like you.

I'm exactly like you are, I was.

Yeah, I have another question.

Please.

You made it seem obvious that anyone

who takes drugs or let's say marijuana

is seeking some kind of mind satisfaction

or that they have worries and you also say

that they need psychiatric help.

I don't think it's necessarily true

that anyone who tries pot needs psychiatric help

because marijuana is very much like cigarettes

you have many kids right here in

this audience who sit down

and smoke or drink occasionally

and I think if a pot smoker needs psychiatric help

they need just as much psychiatric

help as any other pot smoker.

You know I have been generalizing all along

but I guess in your case I have to individualize.

There are some people that I know who only

smoked marijuana and never graduated to heroin.

This is what you're saying right?

I mean you say some of them smoke

and don't need psychiatric help.

Well I have six people that

I counted friends who use marijuana

and true they never did graduate to heroin you know why?

Because on marijuana they committed crimes of passion

and were electrocuted before they

got a chance to get hooked on horse.

Now that's anything I tell you is factual.

They were electrocuted in the electric chair at Raiford

and at Sing Sing for murder that they committed

while using marijuana now I repeat,

you wanna individualize, yes I'm sure

I can find people who tried.

You know nor does he know until he has tried

one stick of pot and didn't get anything in it.

And he stopped I also know kids in Florida

who smoked Oregano and anybody

who cooked knows it's just herb.

And they got a little dizzy or they got

a little bit taste of it and man this is the end.

You don't know that the hell you're doing.

Somebody gives you anything, catnip.

You know thyme, and rolls it up in a cigarette

and you think you got high on it.

That's how psychological it is.

Ans I repeat if you smoke marijuana, you know

if you think about smoking marijuana

there's something wrong up stairs

and you do need a little psychiatric help.

Now how much you need might be contingent on whether

you continue, there are some people who take one stick

and don't do it again.

But there are very, very few

and I wouldn't count on being one of the lucky ones.

Yes dear, yes dear?

Did you ever get yellow jaundice?

Yellow jaundice?

A bout six times.

Yellow jaundice is a disease, it's a liver disease

you turn yellow, your eyeballs

are yellow instead of bloodshot red

and it comes from a dirty needle.

Using a needle that somebody else used

and possible there's a drop of blood in it that intermingles

and it's a very devastating disease.

We have time for one more question.

Yes dear?

You said to drop a dime.

Yeah.

Well for my experience I would say

that if each of us dropped a dime on every one

of our friends that we knew that's using.

It would eventually get back to you?

No, no, no.

That's not, I would say about 85 percent

of our friends would be, they'd lock them up.

What does that tell you?

You sit here and you call me presumptuous,

you would say and we'll take it as off

the top statistic 85 percent of your friends would be,

there you go well think about it,

think about it if somebody doesn't drop

a dime on them you're gonna be the lucky girl

who has to write 85 percent of your letters

to kids in one jail or another cause you count them friends.

Drop a dime on them, somebody will take it up,

somebody somewhere will take it up.

Wouldn't you rather help them now

then have to write to them and send them packages?

Wouldn't you rather help them now when they

get help and not the stigma of a criminal record?

Think about it.

You are your brothers keeper, you must remember that.

You are your brothers keeper.

Help them.

You contend that use of hard drugs.

In an interview following

her talk Florrie Fisher was asked about

her first trip back to New York city after

she gave up using drugs and the things

she saw that made her realize what she had escaped.

I came back to New York on

a sales trip for Synanon in September.

And Synanon is at 35 Riverside Drive

which I believe is 75th street.

And I walked up from 75th street to 96th street

on Broadway this is the area that I hustled

that I bought dope, that I sold dope,

that I slept 24 hours a day

and I was frightened to death, I just didn't believe it.

I saw women that I had known ten years

before that were young beautiful girls

and they were walking down the street

with run over shoes that didn't have heels,

skirts that were pinned together, hanging.

Almost nothing on top, filthy, dirty and every part

of their exposed arms and legs had running

abscesses that I recognized were

from dirty needles and bad stuff.

And it frightened me so that I

had decided to walk up and walk back.

With the good sense to be as scared

as I was I snatched a cab and I ran

back to the sanctity of my home.

"Round round out of your mind."

"You think you're seeing things I know you're blind."

"A million bright colors explode in your head."

"Today you're just high tomorrow you're dead."

"Round round round round."

And it isn't until we have an accident

that we seriously ask ourselves why we had that extra drink.