 It's grass. It's the fun. We earned it's roses and liver. Besides, grass doesn't have it for me like all of you tell them. Hey, quit pushing. You guys don't even know that we have an addiction to get us blooded by people. Well, speak your mind, then. Okay, I wouldn't tell me what I can do with my own body or I can eat, drink, or smoke. This is a free country. I've accepted a law. I make smoke in your heart. Those are things for you to decide. Many people have already decided for themselves and you, whether grass is good or bad. What's most important is what you think. So without any preaching from this film, let's examine the facts and only the facts. There are too many false impressions and prejudices to do it any other way. Okay, then why is an alcohol made illegal? It's a lot worse than grass. Like, take juice, freaks, man. They get hangover and roses to deliver. Besides, grass isn't having for me like alcohol. Right. The facts are, if you drink enough, alcohol will give you hangovers, cirrhosis of the liver, and what's more, it can even kill you. If you are a certain emotional and psychological type, you may become dependent both physically and emotionally and will join the five to six million known alcoholics in the United States. Now, what are the facts about marijuana? What do doctors and psychiatrists have to say about which is worse for you physically and emotionally? Alcohol or marijuana? The facts are, at this time, there are no known damaging physical effects from the use of marijuana. But, unlike alcohol, when you take too much at one time, you don't pass out. You more than likely run the risk of an unpredictable and unpleasant bummer. Occasional drink before dinner by adults like the occasional use of marijuana does not necessarily lead to an emotional dependency in the stable, mature personality. However, teenage is not a time of great maturity and stability for most teenagers. The pressures of school, parents, finding your own identity and self-confidence sets you up for a drug dependency that could just as well be alcohol if you prefer that to grass. Some adults are not mature or strong enough to stand the pressures of their daily lives. These adults can become just as emotionally dependent on marijuana as on alcohol, whichever is more socially acceptable and easier to get, even when the alcoholic is physically withdrawn from his body's need for alcohol. He always goes back to it until he learns how to handle his problem. Just as the alcohol drinker who finds himself needing a drink more and more frequently is the warning sign of his dependency, so it is with the pothead. The more he needs the escape from reality or the pleasure of marijuana, the more he is becoming emotionally dependent exactly as the square and unhipped alcoholic adult does. Do two wrongs ever make one right? That's right. It's a fact. No one ever got cancer from pot. But it's also a fact that no one ever dropped out of school because they were hung up on tobacco. No one who just finished smoking a cigarette ever forgot she was driving a car as she tripped out on the beauty of a back-road nature trip. Ever tried to turn you on to hard drugs or the needle? Another basic difference is that you can smoke cigarettes and do other things. You wouldn't dare to do this on pot. Or rather, your pilot had just finished a joint, not a cigarette, or your surgeon operating on your heart, your attorney leading your case, your sergeant, your dentist, your flight leader, your team center, your LSO, your school bus driver, your country's astronauts, or even the guy who is just changing your front tire. Would you rather he was smoking a cigarette or a joint? However, neither your government nor any responsible person recommends smoking. So, two or three wrongs. Don't make one right heat. Blow as much grass as you like and your body won't need it? Right. You can quit anytime you like. Not true for everybody. And that's the problem. The World Health Organization of the United Nations with its leading medical and psychiatric experts from over 100 member nations has this to say about marijuana being habit-forming without one descending bolt. It's pretty true for the great majority of smoke pot, but it's not true for the many thousands who have gone on to acid, amphetamines, barbiturates, and end up on heroin. However, it is not a fact that practically everyone on grass turns into a flaky drug addict. That's just not true. Every informed person knows this. What is true may be discovered in this Narcotics Rehabilitation Center in some of the group therapy sessions where we will learn what former drug addicts have to say about marijuana turning them on to hard drugs. How many of you started on pop before you started heroin? I did. I did too. I did. So did I. I did. Me too. Me too. I did. I did. So did I. I did. That means all of you used marijuana then? Yes. Yes. I was 11 when I first started. I was about 19. I think it's kind of hard to deal with marijuana because it's so bulky, you know, and you have to go through the trouble of chopping it up and cleaning it. I think it's much easier to deal heroin, you know, with marijuana. Really? Because, you know, all that bulk and everything, it's much easier just to have a small bag of balloon that you can carry and you can cut that up and get a lot more money for it. You know, in all the trouble you have to go through with it, you know, like cutting it up, especially if you get a kilo, you know, you have to cut it up. Then you have to clean it, you know, and then you have to roll it and box it, you know, can it, you know. It's just a big, really big hassle behind it, you know. That's why I think the dealers go on to dealing heroin and then get us to buying heroin. I think if you smoke marijuana or take pills or get loaded in any way at all, that you will be accepted into the dope world and eventually you will have contact with this environment. I definitely think that if you get loaded on marijuana and you are subjected to the environment and it does become readily available to you. That's the way it is, man. You know, when you're around a crowd and you're all smoking weed and then they start using some other drug and you go right ahead along with them and you end up using it and get higher and then the weed isn't good enough anymore. And then you turn on the heroin, too. Most of you started smoking marijuana when you were introduced to narcotics. I started smoking weed when I did all of them. For me, it was, but I wanted a different high, you know. And weed wasn't good enough and I heard that heroin and stimulant crystals were a better high and that's why I went to them, you know. Yeah, I'm the same way, man. I guess a lot of people started that way. Speaking for myself, I did it. Well, I started on weed and had it burned out and I needed something strong, so I went to heroin. Well, I started smoking weed, you know, because I was running away from something, you know, something which was myself. And out of all that, I've run through a lot of highs trying to run away from myself, heroin and LSD and have the drink. I, like marijuana, I just couldn't handle it myself. I was looking for something else. I myself think, really, the real reason I started smoking marijuana, man, because usually I was one of the younger dudes from my neighborhood. I wanted to be accepted. I was weak, scared. And from this it led to heroin and it's just been an endless time of going to jail back and forth, man. I don't like it and I hope nobody else would use this not because of the fact that it's bad itself but what it needs to, man, is the way I feel. Well, I can only speak for myself but I imagine some of the other dudes in here feel the same way I do about it, that some people are addicted prone to it. I mean, like myself, I can't handle it because, I mean, this is just the way I am. I use it for an escape. I did it before I came in here. I hope when I go out that I've changed in which I feel that I have, but I'm a small minority of people that we can't handle anything, you know? Like my alcohol, I can't handle that. I couldn't handle heroin. I mean, weed because I needed something stronger to escape or anything else like that and there's more people like me that I feel, you know? And I imagine some of the other dudes in here could go along with it. You couldn't handle liquor either. Yeah, it's a personality thing but there's sure there's a lot of people that can go out there. These are the files of the Research and Statistics Office of this Narcotics Rehabilitation Center. It's like out of 100 drawers, 95 of them are filled with file folders of people who have started on marijuana. The rest started on glue, pills, alcohol, and a few on heroin itself. The more accurate percentage is 78% of the inmates started on marijuana. However, what the computer doesn't say is... There's certain kind of people that'll avoid taking care of business and will turn to grass when they get hung up and forget about everything else they're supposed to do when they're behind grass. Marijuana doesn't... it's not addictive but by using it you don't do the things that you should do for instance, like in school. You try to do the things that you have to do in school but your mind is not all there, you understand? Nobody can tell me what to do with my own body, what I can eat, drink or smoke. This is a free country and nobody has the right to take away my constitutional rights. That could be a fact but you were the only one affected by what you do. But the Constitution and the laws that came out of it were designed to protect the individual and the group from irresponsible individuals which is why there are speeding laws, building safety laws, pure food laws, pure drug laws, laws to protect your money, laws to protect children, laws to protect the agent and even a law to protect you from taking your own life. It's fully designed by the individual and the group. From aspirin to the latest vaccines, the manufacture and control of all drugs is government supervised. Would you really want it any other way like without government supervision? As a drug, marijuana comes under the supervision of the federal and state governments. It is the assigned work of the police to enforce the law. It is not something they dreamed up on their own. From the Ten Commandments to the Constitution, men has made laws to protect him from hurting himself in the common interest of the group called society. Doctors, psychiatrists, social scientists, chemists, biochemists. Basically people are not primarily concerned with the ethics or morality of the use of marijuana have provided their expert knowledge to our legislators, which in turn has caused them to pass laws to make marijuana illegal. Not as a matter of morality, but as a matter of health, mental health, period. Many young people agree with that. Let's examine the facts. First, marijuana is not legal all over the world. It isn't legal in Mexico, Egypt, India, Great Britain, China, Japan, or any of the major nations in the civilized world. Nigeria is one of the latest countries to make marijuana illegal. Here the pusher is given the death penalty. Though each year more and more teenagers commit crimes while up on grass, this is not the major problem. However, grass as a factor in crime must not be overlooked, especially in that percentage of unstable and aggressive types, and those who wind up in trouble with the law because of something done while they are high on pot. In decent teenagers, smoke pot without committing crimes except for the illegality of the sale, possession, or the use of it. So why not make it legal? Why not bring it out in the open and make it legal in America? It's just that there are too many unstable people in America who would become emotionally dependent on marijuana and end up as non-functioning weedheads. Easy availability and the implied approval of society will, in the opinion of many medical authorities, create a drug dependency problem far more serious than that of the five to six million alcoholics today. If the acknowledged effect of marijuana is much greater than alcohol, it becomes easy to see why the emotionally unstable and immature may turn to marijuana in even greater numbers than to alcohol and eventually go to more dangerous drugs in the form of LSD, pills, and heroin. Who me? Who me? Who me? Who me? It's possible, and that's the problem. You can never tell who is so stable and so emotionally secure that they will not become dependent on marijuana or other drugs for pleasure and full-time escape. Nothing, baby. Nothing. Today, the nicest people may be on grass. Why is that a fact? I took it on a dare. But only kids take dares. I don't want it, man. Take a hit. No, I don't want it. I don't want it. Take a drag. Won't hurt you. Come on. The first sign of character and emotional weakness is when you do things just because others are doing them. When I'm high, it enhances my creativity. This is the same subject matter and painter for both paintings. One was painted before going up on weed and the other while high on weed. Can you see any significant creative difference? When I'm high, it enhances my creativity. The artist thinks he's being more creative, but do you see it in his work? To some extent, the very inhibited person may feel the greater freedom to be creative, but this doesn't mean he will have the necessary talent to be so. It really makes me understand myself. If you don't understand yourself when you're down, then there's no logical or scientifically accepted reason that you will when you're high. Besides, while you're up on grass, you may tell yourself only what you want to know. If you are lucky enough not to be on a bad trip and discover a frightening thing about yourself at that time. Things we've heard for blowing grass up to now are like an iceberg. What about the underlying reasons that are like the 90% of the iceberg you never see? The reasons below the surface that makes teenagers get so hung up on marijuana in spite of what their parents say and in spite of the big risk of being busted? World thinks, adults keep making wars. Parents are hypocrites. They tell us one thing, but then they do another. Why don't they practice what they preach? Why are adults so hung up with making money? That's all they think about. Schools are real bummer. Adult teachers, adult subjects. I just can't wait to get out. Why can't we dress the way we want in school? Sure. World enough to be drafted. We're not old enough to vote. Why are they always treating us like children? Adults never have time to listen to us. And when they do, they just don't see what we're saying. If adults like to make war so much, why don't they go and fight in them? I'm better educated than either of my parents. But they don't listen to me. How can I plan for the future with the draft waiting for me? Why don't you come back some other time? And everything is all right with us. And in the meantime, I'll do what I want to do here and you do what you want to do where you live, do you? Why shouldn't I smoke grass? Why shouldn't I live now and have all the fun I can? If I don't get killed in the war or by the big bomb, all I can look forward to is making money like my father. And I know he isn't happy. You know, sometimes I think it's like a war. Everyone over 30 is vaniming. Over 30? Over 25! Obviously, these are things that bug a lot of the young people. But this time, rather than hear from the establishment, who run newspapers, radio, television, book and magazine publishing companies, political parties and schools, let's hear from those other teenagers who aren't smoking pot. Not all teenagers are on dress. I'm not and my close friends aren't. Every time someone wants to turn me on to pot, they tell me I'll discover myself. Well, I don't need that kind of crutch. Besides, I've never seen any pot has come up with any kinds of answers that help them cope with the kind of problems they have, or I have. I think the teenagers of today are very idealistic. But we don't have definite ways of showing it. We're not old enough to vote, and older people are always telling us what to do. We can't blame us too much for fighting back. But I don't think taking drugs is fighting back. The most you can say for it is it's a sign of rebellion. But what we rebel about isn't changed one bit by getting high on marijuana, because when you come back down, nothing's changed. I think the parents have done the best they can. You can't expect them to know all the answers. Lots of us have had a better education than they have, but that doesn't prevent us from profiting from their experience. I think you've got to be real immature to get hung up on pot. Mature people try to find solutions for their problems instead of trying to find new experiences. I say that teenage is the time to put up or shut up, not to gripe and go on a trip inside yourself, but to have guts like our parents have to have, to go out every day and deal with the things in the outside world that bug them too. I know my parents are too hung up on making money and putting on a show for the neighbors, but that doesn't mean I have to put down money completely. Because maybe now I don't need much, but when I get married, I'm going to have to have money for my family, too. But I just don't have to be as materialistic about it. That's all. The world is changing, and some things are still too hard for our parents to understand. But blowing graph, and that's really a cop out, and it won't help our parents understand the darn thing. School is like everything else. You only get out of it what you put into it. It's not a party. The way I look at it, I'm here to learn. Even if some of the subjects or the teachers aren't the greatest, I've got to make the best of it. I'm here for an education, and everything extra is just gravy. There really is a communication gap, but I think that if I have a better education and a better life than my parents, I should make the first move to make that gap come smaller and smaller. From what I've read and from what I've heard, there are millions of adults over 30 who don't like the establishment of going to war any more than we do. I honestly believe that adults are disappointed in us because it's always been expected of young people to try to change things, to make things better, or at least prepare to change things if we don't like them. Not to cop out on life through grass or other drugs. No, not for me. I'm more interested in dropping into the world I live in than turning on, tuning in and dropping out. I don't like to criticize anybody, but I think that too many teenagers don't have too much purpose. It's like they don't have any goals. I don't mean that they should just be planning to make money and all that, but I think that trying to find something you'll enjoy doing for the rest of your life is the least you can do now because everybody has to work, even girls, before they get married, and even after they do. I think too many teenagers traded in their idealism for a stick of weed. When I see some teenagers acting superior to those of us who don't need drugs to feel good or understand ourselves, I get real bugged. Well now, you've heard from both sides of the question, but what you do with your life is up to you. If you become a pothead, you risk blowing the most important time of your life, your teenage. That unrepeatable time for you to grow up and to prepare for being an adult that can handle problems and make something meaningful out of life. Or you have the choice to have the courage to see and deal with the world for what it really is. Far, far from perfect, but for you and for me, the only one there is. While it's true that some of you will actually go to the moon and perhaps other planets, it's also true that in a few short years, this world will be your establishment and you will be the establishment and what you do or don't do about it will be your scene. You're the generation with the brain power and the opportunity to do more for the human needs of this world than any other generation in history. Let's hope that your teenage children don't have too much criticism about what you did or didn't do because you were on pot.