Word: uses
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...likelihood that any drug will lead to perdition varies widely, the researchers point out; with every mood-changing drug known to man, there is a proportion of people who can use it without suffering harmful side effects or a habit, and of those who cannot. Just as some drinkers become convivial or aggressive and others morose and withdrawn, drug users get as much of their kick from their surroundings and the set of their own psyches as from the chemicals they use. The danger of heavy dependence, the crucial problem with most pop drugs, also depends largely on the personality...
...times the daily medical dosage usually prescribed for dieters. In rare cases?particularly when Methedrine is used?the jolt can raise blood pressure enough to cause immediate death; chronic use can lead to a psychosis that many doctors feel is more similar to schizophrenia than any of the psychotic symptoms brought on by other dangerous drugs. While a person is "up" on speed, his body runs down, making him easy prey to disease. Although amphetamines generally are not considered physically addictive, when a user comes down ("crashes") he is so tired and depressed that he is tempted to start again...
Most researchers now classify the dangers of marijuana as on a par with those of alcohol. However, so far there is no scientific evidence on whether long-term use can produce effects comparable to alcohol's cirrhosis or tobacco's cancer and emphysema. Marijuana's active ingredients?chemicals known as tetrahydrocannabinols (THC)?can cause LSD-type psychotic hallucinations when administered in pure form. (Such a reaction can happen considerably more easily with hashish, a concentration of dried Cannabis resins some six times as powerful as marijuana.) Pot affects the sense of time, but not motor and perceptual skills...
...students who use marijuana, NIMH Director Yolles estimates that 65% quit after experimenting one to ten times; 25% become social users. Only around 10% become habitual users ?a far cry from the level projected by alarmists, but still a serious number. Those in the last category, many of them subject to the depression and discouragement of slum life, often...
Would the ideal solution be to legalize pot? No, say most authorities. Long-term use of marijuana may hold yet unknown health hazards, and might conceivably induce in America the passive, fatalistic outlook common in many Asian and Middle Eastern nations, where marijuana-like preparations are traditional and ubiquitous. (Some experts disagree, suspecting that the problems of Eastern drug-using societies are more a result of religious attitudes and chronic malnutrition than a product of chemistry.) The opponents of legalization argue that even if marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol, one chemical escape valve is enough for any society...