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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1969
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
VOL 93, NO. 39
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Drugs take
many forms
A drug is a drink is a pill is a
smoke is a shot.
A drug can be diluted in a fluid,
compressed in a tablet, rolled in a tissue
or drawn in a syringb.
A drug can cheer someone up, calm
someone down, expand his mind or con
tract his nerves.
The most common type of drug is
the stimulant. Stimulants excite the
central nervous system and increase
heart pulse and blood pressure.
Most stimulants are produced com
mercially by a variety of industries and
are available by prescription. CaffeinV,
found in coffee, tea and colas, is a
mild stimulant, as is the nicotine in
cigarettes. Both are discouraged bv
medical experts because of their ad
dictive characteristics.
Amphetamines
Amphetamines, the "pep pill"
stimulants, come in numerous shapes,
sizes and nicknames. Most are com
pounds of amphetamine sulphate, like
Benzedrine, which come in heart
shaped, rose-colored tablets and white,
round pills called "bennies.".
Dexedrine is also an amphetamine.
"Dexies," or "co-pilots" are produced
as orange, heart-shaped tablets; grven,
football-shaped pills, and multi-colored
capsules.
Liquid amphetamine is also produc
ed for use in a syringe.
These drugs' are synthetic and used
medicinally for treatment of obesity,
fatigue, depression and sleeping
Continued on page 4
Hashish and marijuana, worth the time and the trouble or the ten years, strange?
ers
find
in gras
k
and
n
owledge, splendor
sending drugs
B 1
mina-i
.jpp Pj
4Tm no pusher, you junkie! . . . And besides
I only sell them in wholesale lots."
Knowledge and pleasure are sought
by those University of Nebraska students
who use drugs.
Interest in drugs and their effect is
the motivation to take drugs. A sense
of curiosity, exploration or experimen
tation was cited as the primary reason
for starting to smoke marijuana,
generally the first drug used among
those students interviewed at random.
"At first 1 was curious about what
would happen," said one student.
"1 heard storiVis from friends, about
how great marijuana was," he added.
"I decided to try it and I like it."
"Friends influenced me to try grass,"
another student said. "I had been part
of the great American alcohol culture,
but I liked drugs much better. I rarely
drink now."
Both agreed that there is a
"propaganda backlash," against the
anti-marijuana literature and anti-drug
information found on radio and in
newspapers and heard from policemen,
schools and parents.
"When you find out that what
everybody's been telling you about grass
is a lie, then you think that what they're
telling you about other stuff is a lie
too," the first student explained.
The students also compared the
various drugs they'd tried, (LSD, mari
juana, psilocybin-moscaline, and speed)
with alcohol.
"Alcohol tends to deaden the senses,
while grass heightens your senses,' the
first student said. "You hear music bet
ter, it becomes more powerful. You see
beauty and interest in all sorts of things
like raindrops, other people.
"Alcohol makes you loud and
boisterous and over-emotional. You get
restless and often want to fight. Drugs
calm you, make you relaxed. You are
not restless. You don't want to drive
anywhere and fighting is generally the
farthest thing from your mind."
"It can give you a new personality,
perhaps erasing or neutralizing emotion
around a problem so it can be viewed
objectively," his friend said.
AnothVr student said that in high
school he had listened to both sides
jf the drug controversy and had decided
that the mind was the most exciting
frontier and the last unexplored territory
on earth.
"So I just decided that if I ever had
a chance to use drugs I would," he
added. "1 had that chance at the
University and have learned a lot from
my experiences.
"I've learned to appreciate things.
With LSD things slow down, you can
participate in each moment. You can
Veteran says Dot common in Vietnam
by John Dvorak
Nebraskan Staff Writer
EDITOR'S NOTK: The name used in the follow
ing article is a pseudonym.
The Vietnam War means many things to the sol
diers there. To some it means drugs.
Bill is a University of Nebraska student and a
veteran of the Vietnam War.
He was introduced to marijuana in Vietnam. He's
out of the service now, but continues to smoke mari
juana. "I tried it because it was something new, I guess."
Bill said. He had never smoked pot before going to
Vietnam. "A guy over there told me it was good, and
it was."
The two-year Army veteran said there were about
20 enlisted men in his office. Approximately half were
smokers.
"It was better than drinking, even though booze
was cheap." Bill said. "But drinking just wasn't worth
the hangover. With marijuana it was a lot easier to
get up and go to work without the hangover.
Drinking was prevalent nevertheless. Soldiers
drink lots of wine, he said. But marijuana was parti
cularly effective in relieving the monotony and drud
gery of a 12-hour working day. Bill and his friends
worked in an office and never tasted combat.
"We smoked off duty mostly," Bill recalled. "Oc
casionally if we didn't have much work, we'd smoke
on duty. We seldom smoked in the barracks."
The soldiers would smoke every night of the
week if ths marijuana was available. Other times, it
would be a week or more before they could obtain
the marijuana.
One man out of the office division usually pur
chased the marijuana for everyone, Bill said. His sup
plier was one of the mess cooks, a Vietnamese woman.
The marijuana came already rolled in cigarettes.
The Vietnamese would salvage the tobacco from a
regular pack of American cigarettes, roll the mari
juana into the cigarette papers, refill the pack and
re-seal the cellophane. The marijuana cigarettes came
20 to the pack cost was around $2.
Marijuana grows wild in Vietnam, so the native
pushers make almost a 100 per cent profit. Bill re
members watching Vietnamese civilians smoke pot.
although he is uncertain if it is legal in the war-torn
Southeast Asian nation.
"We would go into the village for a few hours
sometimes," Bill said. "We were always approached
by natives with grass, usually young boys around nine
or ten years old."
No one knows how prevalent marijuana is among
American soldiers in Vietnam. The Pentagon would
rather not admit that pot exists and soldiers in Viet
nam have a difficult time separating facts from ru
mors and stories about the marijuana market.
"We suspected that the officer in charge of us
smoked pot," Bill said. "We were never sure, but he
seemed turned-on at times."
Bill seldom talked to combat troops, although he
had friends who knew of fighting men who smoked
pot.
"Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) would gen
erally raise hell if they knew their men were smoking
pot," Bill said. "There was one NCO who was a good
buddy with us and he knew we were turning on. He
didn't bother us."
Another soldier mailed his girl friend in the
states a birthday present. Hidden in the gift was a
packet of marijuana.
Bill told a story that circulated in Vietnam on one
occasion about an Army captain. The captain had al
legedly been shipping marijuana back to the United
States several pounds at a time. He was making huge
profits, but was caught.
Perhaps one of the reasons Bill and his friends
were never caught was that the Military Police (MPs)
often smoked marijuana themselves.
"If you were caught the penalty usually depended
on the commanding officer," Bill said. Extra duty, a
verbal reprimand, or a stint in the stockade were pos
sible alternatives.
"That was funny because men in the stockade
often blew grass right there," Bill said. "I don't know
how in the world they got it."
Bill and his fellow office workers never even had
a close call while turning on. Bill said he had never
known anyone in Vietnam who was imprisoned for
smoking grass.
While marijuana is popular in Vietnam, other
drugs are not. Bill said he had heard of some people
using speed, but he was never sure. He never heard
of an LSD user, although pain pills were used at times.
"We never had other drugs, although we did hear
rumors that grass was occasionally cut with heroin,
but I don't know," he said.
Bill has been out of the service for some time.
He still smokes pot, even though marijuana in Lin
coln is far more expensive and of far poorer quality
than it was in Southeast Asia.
"A pack of cigarettes in Vietnam cost $2." he
said. "The last time 1 bought that amount here, it
cost $15. It's cheaper and it's better in Vietnam."
perceive tilings in music, in pictures,
in society and friends, that we usually
don't have time to see.
"The brain seems to speed up. You
know the value of every instant, which
can be forever or nearly non-existant.
You think a thousand thoughts a
minute," he explained.
Another student who admits she oc
casionally smokes marijuana said that
people are beginning to rebel against
an impersonal society. She said that
drugs are sometimes used to provide
a sort of comfort against the personal
relationships people are denied.
Uniting people
Her companion disagreed, stating that
drugs seemed to be a means of uniting
people, of breaking down the barriers
of an "apersonal, anti-pleasure society."
Both agreed, along with all others ques
tioned, that whether or not the drug
would have a personal or inter-personal
effect depends more on the individual
and not on the drug.
"It depends on the person and his
mood, as to whether one will be in
trospective and ego-cenlered or group
corn munally-brotherhood motivated,"
one student said. "Generally the mood
effects the drug, not the drug effecting
the mood."
Most students denied taking drugs as
a conscious rebellion against society,
authority or the straight world. A few,
however, reported they were bitter about
what they consider unfair, unjust drug
laws and penalties.
"It seVms amazingly hypocritical,'
protested one student, "that alcohol, a
drug proven harmful, is one of the na
tion's biggest businesses, while mari
juana, never proven harmful despite
years of study In India, draws prison
sentences for possesion."
Others agreed with him, opposing what
one called, "the intolerance of cultural
difference."
"Drinking is the establishment's thing,
so thats okay," he said. "Drugs 'belong
to the revolutionaries, so they're taboo."
All the students agreed that marijuana
should be legalized, but they also oppos
ed the unrestricted legalization of LSD,
speed and other more powerful drugs.
"You can't even compare grass to
Continued on page 4
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Pot-pourri j
i
1
This issue of the Daily Ne- 1
braskan has been devoted to drugs
because their use is a rapidly 1
growing phenonemon not only at
the University of Nebraska, but
even more at a number of cam-
puses across the country.
The Nebraskan does not take a
stand on drugs or their use, or 1
the prevailing attitude of govern
ment at all levels which is con-
cerned with what it sees as un-
questionable abuse, I
We are insteud endeavoring to 1
present factual information on the
I nature of drugs, current laws p
concerning them and the reason
why college students turn to them I
f In growing numbers. 1
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