NARCOTICS: WHY NOT

[Music] Hills and you know to stick with because I don't know went on from that you know time I shot heroin I uh took an overose and passed out on the floor and people try to revive me uh it seems like I've been a problem child ever since I started uh using uh it's been a a heck of a life I don't know how to how to really uh tell it you know [Music] [Music] these men and women all of them are addicts they at this re reabilitation Center maintained by the state of California for treatment and possible first stage control of their sickness addiction to narcotics you see is a sickness unchecked it can be fatal don't let the way they look fool you they didn't look like this they didn't act like this on the outside when they were busted [Music] some were arrested for possession of Narcotics ranging from pills to marijuana to Herold some were literally picked up off the street for addiction to barbiturates like nutal some were arrested for pushing [Music] selling and many were arrested for theft forgery and other crimes to get more the support there how do they start on the road at leads to institutions like this and to immerse prisons and often to death why did they begin using narcotics of them even before they reach Junior High School why I started using narcotics because I heard other people talk about them and I thought it was something great and I wanted to try it out and at this time I was introduced to barbituates and dranking excessively and it was just a lot of kicks and nothing of any meaning you know and the school that I attended it was a very negative body of of uh fellows there I haven't been a success in school and them feeling the same way we had something in common um I think the reason why I started using narcotics was an acceptance and um I don't know I didn't have any brothers and sisters that were close to me I was considered actually the baby of the family and and um I felt that these people did when I do use narcotics I uh I guess it made me feel like a big man you know big part of big man in the crowd you know I was 16 when I start taking smoking weed and dropping pills and uh it made me feel security you know made me feel like no one could get close to me and I like the feeling I was so disappointed that I just said later to everything and I went out and fixed heroin Within in three or 4 months I was hooked when I was uh 14 years old I was running around with a friend of mine uh this guy was older than I was about 3 years older than I was and he was a smoking marijuana he introduced it to me he asked me to try it and I tried it because uh I looked up to the guy he was older than I was and it seemed like he was having a lot more fun excitement they hope to have more fun more kicks to gain acceptance to achieve security they hope to forget their troubles bury their failures for hopes like these they break the law and risk their lives every day sniffing glue blowing pot dropping pills shooting heroin for [Music] what when I drop pills I'd find myself falling over tables downstairs uh running into walls and if I had enough pills I would try to drive a car and I've gotten quite a few racks uh you don't have any fear of uh hurting yourself or others uh myself my friend used to uh usually go over the park or something like that and and uh sniff at the park and have a good time what we didn't realize at the time was the consequences of what we were doing and myself I know three or four people that have been in the hospital uh because of the effects of glue sometimes from kidney trouble and uh your your thoughts are from brain damage I was always leery of everybody you know I didn't particularly want to meet nobody new because I didn't particularly trust nobody uh blow it and steadily be looking around and uh watching who you're with I started smoking weed and then taking the pills but I knew that there was something better so I uh started using heroin and any other opiate I could find I just wanted to try even after even after I used heroin I wanted something bigger and better you know I think that's why I kept going wanting more because it never made me actually uh Escape or forget about what I was wanting or forget about anything this is uh all happened to me pretty fast I'm I'm only 21 now and I feel kind of tired Within Myself well the group of nine that uh fellas that I ran around with some are dead some are in the penitentiaries uh some are still going to county jails back and forth uh they're just not doing too well out there I used to get up out of bed and just take my daily dosage once I was in I was under the influence of these it never wore off I was constantly under the influence and I seemed I had a need for more and more I was 18 I was introduced to heroin by a a friend of mine so-called friend and uh I don't know things at that time just seemed to fall everything I I had built up in the last 2 or 3 years which wasn't much but what I had buil up just fell just all at once I uh lost my job and uh all the people that I had respect for and respect for me I lost every bit of that when you get hooked it's uh it's really a drag because pretty soon the the heroin doesn't get you loaded unless you really shoot a lot and it gets more expensive and you've got to go out and hustle up some money either checks stealing burglaries you know there's many ways to get money and pretty soon you you don't even want to go out and get any money for your stuff and you just lay there and vegetate you don't you don't go to parties anymore you don't have any fun you don't uh do pardon me you don't do things you don't um you don't live you're just nothing uh this time that I got picked up for using narcotics it was a little bit harder uh you find that the police enforcement officer is against a pusher mainly because of the fact they destroy people mostly uh young teenagers because they're the ones that are weakest they you could push to them and they'll find it a thrill to associate with you you [Music] know well when I realized I was hooked on Heroin uh to feel normal like a unuser would feel so I was really just spending money for nothing I was using drugs Benny's barbituates and uh I've got up to the point where I would drop up to 50 pills a day and think nothing of it um at time there's been times I've gone into a coma for two days I would be at a I would be at a house or with a little party going on or something and blackout and maybe day and a half or two days before I'd wake [Music] up I've had uh memory lapses I find myself a few times uh somewhere and I didn't realize how I got was doing I guess that's about all I live for after a while you just forget that the world exists all you all you know is your own little world of of dope the world of dope is a sick World easy to enter but hard incredibly hard to leave throughout the United States the figures are Grim of those people treated for Narcotics addiction at Federal hospitals no more than 6% are cured 94% use narcotics again within the next 6 months they're hooked forever until they die well when I was at there on the on the streets using I really didn't stop to take a look at myself why I was using or what it was doing to me or anything like this and I can see now where it's red my whole life I'm 32 years old and I don't have anything I'm going to try and uh make it as as hard as I can uh I know that uh it'll be hard but uh I'm willing to give it a try something I didn't know when I was out there because I've never been busted and locked up for any length of time and that's my freedom I feel like my freedom is more important than fixing I went too much out of life uh to go keep on shooting narcotics and uh ruining it uh it has it just ruins it completely well now that I'm off of heroin I feel like that it's just a nice feeling to be able to wake up in the morning and be hungry and want to eat breakfast rather than have to get up and fix just pure misery addiction to addicts is Misery the addict locks himself into a mental and physical Prison from which escapes our few and far between so what's with narcotics you know to the young men in wom this film the answer is obvious now [Music]