Geoff Nate’s drug of choice is dopamine. You don’t smoke it. You don’t inject it. You don’t snort it. You don’t even drink it. It doesn’t come in a pill, liquid or powder. You don’t need a prescription. It’s not sold in pharmacies or by street corner pushers.

In fact, dopamine is legal. If the drug companies could find a way to manufacture and sell dopamine, I’m sure they would. The AMA would give it a 100% approval rating. Actually, Webster defines dopamine as a neurotransmitter in the brain. It’s nature’s high.

I get high on conversation when I’m surrounded by kids and grandkids. Same thing happens when my beautiful assistant, Jen walks in the door.

Though I seldom take more than a sip or two before dinner I have an impressive single malt Scotch collection and a full bar, the envy of friends and neighbors.

I wish it ended there; no harm done. On the other hand, I am embarrassed to open my medicine cabinet. The shelves are filled with prescription as well as non-prescription, feel-good look-good pharmaceuticals and toiletries. I down seven different vitamins every morning at breakfast and a handful of Rx and sleep aids before bed.

So what authority do I have to write about the hard stuff?

 

Marijuana was around when I was a boy, though I never saw anyone smoking it. They say band members used the stuff, and perhaps some winos down on Washington Avenue (our Skid Row in Minneapolis). There were ads discouraging its use in those days, and someone made a film called “Reefer Madness” where a woman goes bonkers and jumps out the window (see Blog 17, “Grandpa’s First Trip).

Cannabis (marijuana) was legalized in California in 1996 for medical treatment only. As I write this, the voters in thirty-three states have approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes and eleven states, including California, have OKed it for recreational use by adults over the age of 21. That, however, is really no big deal. Every kid has a pal or a big brother with a card.

Folks at a party used to slip outside to smoke a marijuana joint. Today it’s baked into the wedding cake.

Here in Malibu we have “High Tide” an inviting appropriately named store on PCH. It’s located above a surf shop, and visitors can expect to be greeted by a team of beautiful hostesses who will acquaint you with the store’s impressive inventory of smokable as well as edible goodies.

Geoff Nate is a non-smoker. I’ve never even tried tobacco, let alone marijuana. However, I have recently discovered that a small nibble of the edible Cannabis Indica can be a helpful sleep aid.

 

 

 

“Genesis”

The drug epidemic has a history. Coca Cola actually contained cocaine until 1929. Lithium citrate, which is still used to treat manic depressive disorder, was once an ingredient in 7Up. “Get high with Coke,” “Relax with 7Up.” Why not?

Back in the 1950s students and businessmen were using Dexamyl, a commonly prescribed amphetamine/barbiturate, to stay sharp in class and at meetings. Geoff Nate was never a pill popper, but he dabbled. “Dex” was one in the potpourris of drugs that killed Marilyn Monroe. Today’s students are using Adderall, an even stronger stimulant, that is seriously habit forming.

Anti-anxiety drugs (downers) such as Miltown and Valium (“Mother’s Little Helper”) were also popular in the 1950s. Xanax later replaced Miltown when the latter was taken off the market.

When I was in college some of my party pals used to drink strong coffee before class or pop so-called stay-alert drugs like Nodoz before an exam. In those days, the “heavy” drugs were heroin and cocaine, both expensive but available if you knew the “right people.”

I had a buddy or two who had drinking problems and a few that smoked marijuana. However, I never knew anyone who was hooked on the so-called “heavy” drugs at the time. Perhaps, I didn’t hang out with the “right people.” My first exposure to the so-called recreational stuff was at a Hollywood cocktail party back in the 1970s when I interrupted a young woman in an unlocked restroom sniffing white powder through a rolled-up ten-dollar bill.

Club Drugs

Many of today’s drugs that used to be considered taboo are now considered pop culture. TV shows and feature films treat the subject lightly as they did booze in the 1930s and 40s when the stars carried flasks in their back pockets. 

In Geoff Nate’s day parents warned their daughters to steer clear of alcohol when on a date for fear that they may lose their inhibitions. They had good reason to be worried. On the other hand, studies have shown that 50% or more of today’s young people have had recreational sex before they graduate high school and are met with temptations Mom and Dad would have never imagined.

Today, young women are warned to watch out for “date rape drugs” such as “roofies,” which are benzodiazepine tranquilizers 10 times more potent than Valium and are often slipped into the drinks of unsuspecting victims. Ketamine (used by veterinarians as an anesthetic) can also be considered a date rape drug and can be taken in pill form, put into liquid or snorted. It is a powerful dissociative that produces a dreamlike state and hallucinations.

So-called “club drugs” such as ecstasy, meth, ketamine and roofies to name a few, lower inhibitions and are often abused by young people at night clubs, concerts and parties.

Raves in the 1980s and 90s, now commonly known as EDM (Electronic Dance Music) dance parties, featured DJs and occasionally live performers. Raves were often associated with illegal drugs. They were commonly held in warehouse spaces and could go on for 12-14 hours.

Today’s EDM Events are more often legal in comparison to their earlier “rave” counterparts. A highlight of large music festivals, they are usually held in outdoor venues with loads of colorful special effects. 

Drug dealers are all over the place at these events. Unlike some sleazeball hiding in an alley, he could be your best friend’s brother. However, personal inspection (pat downs) for drugs and firearms are standard practice upon entry.

So-called “festival drugs” are nothing new. Some say Woodstock was the beginning. Offer an open invitation to thousands of young people at a remote farm in upstate New York, feature some of the world’s most popular rock stars at a venue with no rules or professional supervision, and you have the “party” to end all parties.

California was the birthplace of the “flower children” back in the 1960s. They may have looked like hippies, but they were not generally associated with the drug culture. They passed through Malibu in groups of two or three. They popularized the “hippie look.” Geoff Nate’s sons started wearing hair at shoulder length and emulating the dress and the language of those wandering vagabonds.

Not necessarily a “club drug,” LSD (Acid) is a hallucinogenic made famous by Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary (left) and is sold in tablet or capsule form. Laboratory manufactured using lysergic acid, it usually brings on a trip that can last up to 12 hours. Actor Cary Grant was a big LSD user. [Click Play below]

 

Today “microdosing” small amounts of old favorites, such as LSD or mushrooms, has become popular in Silicon Valley where it is used to tweak perception and enhance performance. As a matter of fact, Johns Hopkins just opened a new center for psychedelic research with the aim of studying these hallucinogenics for a range of mental health problems including anorexia, depression and addiction. 

“The Habit”

Drug addiction is nothing new. Some of history’s famous drug abusers include Vincent van Gogh (absinthe), Charles Dickens and Benjamin Franklin (opium), and Sigmund Freud, Thomas Edison, Elvis Presley and Robin Williams (cocaine). Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes used both cocaine and morphine.

 

Dubbed members of “The 27 Club,” rock stars Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse and Brian Jones all died of drug overdoses at the age of 27.

 

 

Today’s young drug culture has developed a language of its own. As “pot,” “grass” and “weed” are familiar street names for marijuana, “snow,” “blow” and “dust” are slang terms for cocaine. Some of the other popular delicacies with street-speak nicknames include:

Vicodin (“norcos”), Xanax (“Z-bars”), Mushrooms (“caps”), PCP (“angel dust”), Oxycodone (“hillbilly heroin”), Morphine (“Miss Emma”), Fentanyl (“TNT”), and for Crystal Meth (“speed”). 

Note: Fentanyl (deadlier than heroin) is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine and could have been made in his kitchen by your best friend’s brother.

“Speedballing,” often called the “celebrity killer,” is slang for shooting cocaine and heroin at the same time. Heroin is a depressant while cocaine is a stimulant, and taken together it claimed the lives of John Belushi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Chris Farley (SNL) and River Phoenix.

“The Opioids”

Yesterday’s profile of a drug addict has changed significantly. Alcohol and nicotine have also long been recognized as common “gateway drugs.” However, access to their parents’ medications has attracted children who might have begun experimenting with so-called household drugs as early as 10 years of age. Some kids get started sniffing inhalants such as glue or paint thinner, and eventually move on to prescription meds, readily available in the family medicine cabinet.

America’s biggest drug threat today is the exploding proliferation of legal opioids which are traditionally prescribed by physicians to treat pain. However, they can be as addictive as those drugs associated with the pushers and their “junky” customers. They are available on a so-called “prescription-only basis” in every pharmacy in America, advertised all over television and sold under such name brands as OxyContin, Percocet, Roxiprin, and Percodan. Why bother to deal with some shady pusher on a street corner when there are willing physicians and pharmacists who readily treat a patient’s professed “discomfort” with a perfectly legal Rx?

Opiates such as morphine and codeine are naturally occurring chemicals in the poppy plant. Heroin is also a derivative of the opium poppy, 70% to 90% of which is grown in Afghanistan. Most heroin production is controlled by the Taliban and sold to finance its violence in the Middle East.

Semi-synthetic laboratory manufactured opioids such as oxycodone and hydrocodone are also byproducts of the opium plant. Many drug abusers become addicted to opiates after they were legally prescribed as a pain killer. In search of a greater high, (referred to as “chasing the dragon”) many move on to even stronger stuff.

Opioids are being irresponsibly prescribed by physicians despite the possibility that they could lead to dependency and the other serious habits that can result therefrom. One hundred years ago heroin was actually marketed as safe and prescribed for pain in adults as well as children. Legally prescribed opioid narcotics can mimic heroin.

This year (2019) the government of Oklahoma sued and settled with Purdue Pharma, the nation’s leading manufacturer of opioids, for $270,000,000. Oklahoma is also suing Teva, the Israeli manufacturer of opioids, for $85,000,000 and Johnson and Johnson, manufacturer of a fentanyl patch, for $17 billion.

At present there are 2,000 federal cases pending against retailers, CVS, Walgreen’s, Rite Aid, Walmart and their suppliers, all of whose key officers (i.e. Laurence F. Doud of Rochester Drug Cooperative, shown above) are subject to arrest.

The demand is high. For example, a single Walgreen’s store in Port Richey, FL (population 2,831) has been filling over 3,000 prescriptions of oxycodone a month.

Crystal meth (“speed”) is another laboratory-made narcotic which dates back to World War II when it was used to keep German troops and pilots alert in battle. Meth is a synthetic made by boiling a mix of amphetamines with such ingredients as battery acid, drain cleaner, lantern fuel and antifreeze. You can smoke it, snort it or ingest it. (Yech!)

Note: If any of our blog readers want to go online and see photos and videos of serious designer drug addicts be my guest. They are not pretty.

 

“Treatment”

Most young drug abusers are not delinquents. They often come from good homes. Many are college graduates. They hold down jobs. Some are married with children. Many don’t consider themselves addicted. Some say it’s just part of their scene. They call it “partying,” an easy way to cut loose from everyday realities and responsibilities.

That’s baloney, just a lame excuse- a cop out. For many there are proven treatment options. Unfortunately it’s not easy to control an alcohol or drug habit, but it’s being done every day. AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and its sister organization NA (Narcotics Anonymous) are available to abusers worldwide.

 

 

My first exposure to drug addiction was a story we published in a magazine I edited back in the early 1960s. It featured the brief life of a radical treatment facility called Synanon, which was actually located on the beach in Santa Monica. The founder and manager was a controversial character named Chuck Dederich whose rugged methods were considered novel at the time. Chuck’s practices as well as his demeanor alienated virtually everyone with whom he came in contact, especially the local city officials. As the story goes, someone from the group put a live rattlesnake in a Synanon critic’s mailbox. It made the newspapers the next day. Columbia made a terrible movie based on the place. 

To no one’s surprise Chuck and Synanon disappeared from Santa Monica, as did the fledgling drug rehabilitation business.

Synanon’s failure did not however diminish my interest in the concept of group home treatment for drug and alcohol abusers. Years later I was invited to join the Board of Directors of Phoenix House of California, an affiliate of the New York based non-profit organization which was proving that residential treatment can be an effective way to deal with substance addiction. From its first small facility in Manhattan, Phoenix House flourished under the leadership of its founder Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, and now operates treatment programs in a dozen states. I have been a member of the California Board for over 30 years.

The legalization of marijuana has not been an easy adjustment for Phoenix House. Most professionals consider marijuana a “gateway drug,” leading young people to sooner or later begin sampling the stronger stuff.

Are organizations such as Phoenix House, AA and NA the perfect answer? For some, yes. For those addicts who fail to control their habits with personal or group therapy only there are other self-help options such as Methadone or Suboxone, however they usually involve substituting one so-called “medicine” for another. For starters, the experts suggest SAMHSA, a national hotline for mental health and substance abuse that will discuss alternatives. They have nothing to lose.