DRUG ABUSE

IN EVERY NATION

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 200 million people world wide regularly use marijuana. Regarding drug control a Swedish expert says: “At best we have ten years in which to prevent a social catastrophe. . . It may already be too late.”

AT EVERY SOCIAL LEVEL

Soldiers, factory and office workers, even elementary school children are drug users. A former addict confessed: “I shot dope with millionaires in Miami, and I shot dope with bums on the bowery.”

And many doctors see nearly as grave a danger in the abuse of ‘legitimate drugs’​—including pep pills, sleeping pills and diet pills—​part of about 2 billion drug prescriptions filled in 1970 in the United States alone.

Drug addiction is steadily reaching into more and more sectors of human society. But even though those on “hard drugs” may still be relatively few, the fact is that much of the world’s population is developing a “drug-oriented culture.” Men and women by the millions are turning to tranquilizers, sleeping pills, pep pills and other so-called “safe” drugs for relief or stimulus. The greater the pressures grow, the greater the temptation to use these to excess​—or to go to more powerful drugs.