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Memorial Day Bash

STARTING AT 7 P.M. SUNDAY May 30, 1982

B.B.Q.2:30 2:30 A.M.

LIQUOR AGAIN 5:30a.m.

"Bloody Mary Specials" AGAIN MONDAY

OPEN

B.B.Q.

& cookout

7

'till

P.M.

NO INCREASE IN COVER CHARGE CONTROLLED & GUARDED PARKING ACROSS THE STREET

1273 W 9th CLEVELAND 241-1769

ACTION CLINIC DRUGS

Life is chemical, and all living cells, By far the worst offender in the wesorgans and the creatures they form tem world is alcohol, whose addicts, function as organized systems of checalled alcoholics, number an estimated sical reactions. This explains why five million in the US alone. In second drugs are so important to human well place are the various forms of hemp. In being. Drugs are chemicals able to such forms as hashish, bhang and some enter into the living reactions of 200 others, hemp is consumed by many cells and alter their structure or aillions in the Muslim world and India, function, hopefully, but not always where alcohol is forbidden. Not all of for the better. these people can be considered addicts, however, nor can the many Americans who smoke marijuana (the Mexican word for bhang). Less popular but more vicious in their effect are opium and its deri vatives, morphine and heroin, whose US addicts are estimated at 300,000. other serious problems are posed by barbiturates and amphetamines (pep pills). Another threat, whose extent is still unclear, is the use of such drugs as LSD and other hallucinogens.

The drugs that fascinate ean soat the ones that inspire his to poetry or drive him to murder are those that affect the brain and the spinal cord. These organs control, not only, the body itself but sensations of thought, emotion and pain. they include some of the most common drugs (alcohol, caffein), some of the most useful (ether) the most contraversial (LSD, hashish) and also some of the most dangerous of drugs (cocain, heroin).

These sind altering drugs which control the central nervous system (CNS) were all developed because of man's need for better pain killing methods. Before the development of CNS drugs some dangerous and cruel pain killing methods were in use in the olden days. The Assyrians, a notably bloody-minded people, chocked boys into insensibility before perform ing the operation of circumcision. At other times and places, the patient was simply knocked in the head. This method of anesthesia" often turned out to be permanent.

Later, physicians used drugs like alco hol and opium in performing surgery. These drugs, however, could only dull the pain somewhat but not eliminate it completely. The 19th century discovery of anesthetics, notably ether and chloroform, spawned a variety of other pain relieving drugs. These CNS drugs and anesthetics which bad banished physical paia are the bright side of mind drugs. The dark side, of course, is the problem of drug addiction.

Addiction is the compulsive use of a drug to the extent that it seriously impairs the users capacity to lead a normal life. The addict takes drugs not only because he wants to but because he has to. Often, the addict can control his need for drugs no better than we can control our need to breathe.

None of the drugs, without exception, can turn an individual into a "sex mani

ac", if anything, they do the opposite. Opium derivatives reduce the sex drive, hemp drugs have a similar though less pronounced effect.

Very few drugs stimulate its users to violent or criminal acts. Even alcohol, though it can remove ones inhibition against violence, does not stimulate brutal acts. Large and repeated doses of cocain, however, can bring on paranoia and violent behavior, or as one addict put it, "if you aren't nuts before you use it, you sure are afterward."

The human body has a remarkable capacity to alter itself in response to the disturbing stimuli of drugs. Just as a heavily exercised muscle will develop thicker fibers to carry the increased load, so repeated doses of opiates and barbiturates lead the nervous system to function energetically to counteract the drugs. At this point the individual becomes physically dependent on the drug. If the drug is suddenly withdrawn the body responds to the absence of the drug on which it has become dependent by "withdrawal symptoms" such as sleeplessness, vomiting, sweating and cramps. The dangers of drug abuse are almost matched by withdrawal symptoms, which are always unpleasant, usually painful and occasionaly fatal.

NEXT: ALCOHOL THE OLDEST DRUG.