LSD INSIGHT OR INSANITY

I'm Sal Mineo and these are teenagers all teenagers are different they come in all different shapes and sizes and range in age from teenyboppers to 19-year olds 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 a 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 original and very self expressive there's some girls who express themselves in the more 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 Beatles but girls have always had a lot more ways to express themselves through their hair why they could change its 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 hairstyles may make it necessary to take a good look to see which is the girl and which is the boy but that's not true for all boys especially for those who are trying so desperately to prove their manhood [Music] however the more personal the more individual way to prove your manhood was to play chicken and at one time a chickie run was considered the best way to prove manhood dead or alive [Music] but girls the matter of being chicken and proving yourself as a woman it's still frequently based on accepting this kind of dare from a so-called friend [Music] it's even adults admit it growing up isn't easy especially if you try to keep up with the dares and fads of some of your more advanced friends two of the more advanced fads have to do with drugs so why do you want to be tell them you can be oh please just try that's okay now there's a brilliant argument for you why with the help of a good kind friend you can be turned on make the scene bow grass smoke reefers or pop joints or Maryjane'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 and that's the real stuff very very cool very very groovy [Music] now everybody who takes it admits it is always the risk of a bad trip for bummer to freak out even a flip-out but why be laying baby give yourself a real kick yes a kick in the head [Music] these LSD million of a bad another dare another kick is it insight or insanity what do America's 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 have also occurred in LS DS users because of this we say that LSD is not just a fad people are seriously disturbed some even dead what is LSD how does it work when did it all begin it all began in a laboratory very much like this one in 1938 dr. Albert Hoffman 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 migraine headaches but subsequent investigations showed that they are very fascinating indeed in the changes that they produce in our mental state it was found that these substances could produce a change in mental state closely resembling some forms of insanity in particular schizophrenia however more interest has centered on the very peculiar symptoms that the drug produces in the subject who is otherwise normal normal people react to LSD by seeing strange patterns of wildly moving couch [Music] time may appear to stand completely still faces may appear and then melt away [Music] and at other times the subject may recall with terrifying detail incidents that are long long forgotten [Music] 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 distortion of judgment one ounce of LSD makes three hundred thousand doses an amount of LSD the size of an aspirin tablet can make three thousand doses the normal dose is a hundred micrograms an experienced chemist has no difficulty in making it at home however we have found that this ammeter stuff contains many other substances dangerous and often deadly the strength of this eMeter stuff is always uncertain it may contain none nor ten hundred or three hundred well maybe three thousand micrograms we have produced convulsions and death in animals with large doses of LSD nevertheless in spite of the risks the word was out LSD was it one pill and all unhappiness was vanish the real meaning of existence would become quickly clear such nonsense parents deprived of LSD did not understand soon there was a great public outcry lysergic acid diethylamide was tossed out into the street but it's a raging controversy because of this the only legitimate company manufacturing pure LSD stopped many scientists felt a good scientific work was impossible in such a frantic myth this is unfortunate because there are many basic questions about LSD which remain unanswered one of the long-term effects in the brain of LSD does it cause permanent damage some doctors are afraid that it does cause permanent damage but at this time the facts remain unknown 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 of the following I took it the first time because I was curious under LSD God's not a far away idea he's something that it's right inside you that you're experiencing now I took y'all stay for a kick man LSD is like a vitamin for the brain I mean to expand your mind LSD stimulates creativity in the brain in other words it expands your your thought processes so that 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 6 months following their LSD taking that they were no more creative when we measured them than they were before they took the LSD however they're feeling their inner feeling of subjective creativity was there this means perhaps that they may have an impression of creativity but not creativity itself creativity is 90% perspiration and only 10% inspiration and LSD doesn't enhance one's desire to perspire LSD is a is a really groovy way to find out more about the things around you LSD helps you to understand your own mind it releases your mind to you LSD is a way about finding out about yourself about your own problems what about the question of self insight and a self-awareness is it enhanced under LS well in over a dozen years of my own research speaking with hundreds of young people and old I found that their feeling that they had an increased awareness following LSD is not often borne out by their subsequent behavior they do not seem to have changed their lifestyle for the better indeed unfortunately sometimes it is for the worse on rare occasions they may obtain valid insights so often though all too often they do not while there are many things that we don't know about LSD there are a 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 a hundred times before their bad trip and the bad trip instant insanity often a never-never-land of no return [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] this girl is obviously acutely disturbed she will be in the hospital for a few weeks 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 a long time some others who take yellow state will have even more tragic freak-outs and there's no way to tell which ones these will be many lose all contact with reality for instance some forget what height means and in it turned on or euphoric state step or attempt to fly from cliffs and high windows with real life permanent non psychedelic research other tripperz attempt to merge their beans the large another uncertainty about LSD is this we don't know how it works in the body we don't know the normal chemistry of it in the brain there are two chemical structures here serotonin a normal chemical found in the brain and LSD which has certain similarities to it but whether these similarities are important or not we don't know there's much work to be done a good deal of important research lies in the future hopefully someday we'll have the answers there is much conflict in opinion as to why LSD should prove so popular with so many teenagers psychiatrists do have some ideas one is the teenage is a time of life that's full of conflict it's a time when people are struggling with who they are what they want to become a time when they're dealing with their own sexual on angry feelings it's a time for rebellion a time for experimentation a time for dares the time for fads it's unfortunate however that LSD has proven to be such an in fad unfortunate not because LSD is wicked or sinful of itself but because it is such an extremely dangerous drug a drug whose effects are so unpredictable a drug which too often causes severe long-lasting damage it's up to you [Music] taking LSD is much the same as playing Russian roulette you spin the barrel with the one bullet in it and you take a chance [Music] any one shot or several may be 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 [Music] why not just take that there don't be chicken and square baby express yourself you don't have to repress yourself so Bobby Flay its do it this new game it's just like Russian roulette when you're making a bad bet that you lose weight just like a do it's like the great big end of your life kick kick in the head [Music]