Gettin High Or Controlled?

Gettin High or Controlled?

In recent issues of the SUN, we have talked a lot about quaaludes and the effect that they have on our people. We have gotten a considerable amount of response from people in the community, especially to an ad (see below) warning of quaalude addiction. Some people have accused us of using scare tactics, and question the validity of quaaludes actually being addictive. Others, although totally aware of the dangers of quaaludes, insist that with them it's different, and that it's alright to take quaaludes, once in a while. Because of the numerous questions involved and because we feel that quaaludes and other downer drugs, are detrimental to our natural growth as a people and as a community, we feel that it is necessary to respond and to make our position clearer.

When we talk about drugs, and how they affect people, we have to consider how they affect all of our people collectively and how they affect the growth of our culture and community as a whole, and not just how they affect people as individuals. Different drugs have been used by different people throughout history, in various ways and for many different purposes. In Amerika, drugs have continually been used to enslave people and to keep them under control. Alcohol was one of the primary "weapons" used to "conquer the West" and destroy the spirit of red people. Heroin has been used for years in black and brown communities to keep the people under control. Quaalude is only the newest drug used by the Amerikan control addicts in their attempts to destroy the energy and life of our newly emerging rainbow culture.

When our culture first began to develop, marijuana and psychedelics were an integral part of our development as a people. The more of the sacramental herb that we smoked with our brothers and sisters, the more we realized that we could no longer be a part of the honkoid, plastic, Amerikan death culture that we had grown up in. It was marijuana and psychedelics that began to cleanse us of the pig inside ourselves, bring us more in tune with nature, and give us visions of a whole new economic, cultural, and political social order based on communalism, where all people can live in peace and cooperation and develop to their highest human potential.

But the capitalist ruling class that runs Amerika couldn't stand to let this upsurge of freedom go unchecked. The more that people take control of their own lives and the institutions that affect their lives, the greater a threat it becomes to those who control those institutions, whose only interests are more profits and continued control. In 1968, Operation Intercept was launched in an attempt to stop the flow of marijuana to our people. At the same time, the streets of our communities were flooded with first speed and then heroin. What better way to diffuse the people's energy and to keep them under control? If people are nodding out, they are not going to be spending much time or energy in building the alternatives that are necessary for us to survive and grow as a people. As people began to organize to deal with the problem, and more and more people realized what jones was doing to our community, the control addicts had to think of new drugs to keep the people's energy down. Enter on the scene... quaalude.

Quaaludes first started to appear a little over a year ago, and since that time, the amount of quaaludes found on the streets of rainbow communities across the country has increased so drastically that literally thousands are consumed by our people every day. Medically classified as a sleeping pill, quaalude was originally promoted as a "safe" sedative, the wonder drug to replace barbiturates. As it turns out, quaalude is not so "safe" after all.

Initially, the people had no knowledge of quaalude being addictive. (The drug companies n their promotion literature, say that addiction is "rarely reported.") Just in the past couple of months, a couple of people went to Drug Help and the Free People's Clinic with what proved to be the first reported cases of quaalude addiction. It's extremely hard to estimate the number of people who could be addicted, but judging from what we do know, it could be frightening.

One of the biggest dangers of quaalude is, although your body builds up a tolerance, needing more of the drug to get the same effect the more often you take it, the amount needed to overdose remains the same. This is the direct opposite of heroin, where both the tolerance and the overdose amount increase at the same rate. So the regular quaalude user, unlike the heroin user, will eventually reach a point where he/she will no longer feel any physical effects of the drug, but can still OD.

Another major danger with quaalude is taking them combined with alcohol and/or on a hot day. Both alcohol and heat will potentiate the effect of the quaalude, which means that the combined effect will be much greater than the separate effects added together. (In this case, one plus one does not equal two, but actually equals three or four).

If a person is addicted to quaaludes, withdrawal can be extremely dangerous and should only be done under medical supervision. Presently there are only two methods used to withdraw people from quaaludes. The first is to very slowly decrease the amount of quaalude daily consumed. This method is very slow and is still very dangerous. The other way is to withdraw from the quaalude by becoming addicted to barbs, which is easier to withdraw from, and then withdraw from the barbs. Under no circumstances should anyone attempt to quit cold turkey. Sudden withdrawal from quaalude could send your body into convulsions, and it can be fatal!

If you think you may be addicted to quaalude, and you would like to kick, call Drug Help, 761-HELP, or the Free People's Clinic, 761-8952, and they will arrange tor whatever help you need.

Just as the immensity of the CIA heroin smuggling operation becomes more and more obvious every day, it also becomes more obvious that the government, and the drug companies have conspired to flood the streets of our communities with pharmaceutical downers like quaalude. Drug compaines are reluctant to give out any information about the drugs that they manufacture, especially about the quantities produced, but it is evident that a large percentage of the drugs that are manufactured never reach the doctor's offices or drug stores, but are pumped directly onto the streets of our communities, and into the bodies of our brothers and sisters. The drug companies rake in the profits, while the people remain under control. This just further perpetuates the exploitation and oppression that we are forced to live under every day.

When attempting to come up with solutions to the problems of quaaludes and other death culture drugs among our people, we have to realize that we will never totally rid our communities of bogus dope until we destroy capitalism once and for all, and build our new rainbow nation on the ruins of the old. Every time that the people expose the capitalists plans and educate the people about death drugs, they have a new drug waiting to replace the old. (Watch out for harmonyls, a new downer finding its way into our communities.) What we must do is build alternatives so that people don't feel the need to down themselves out to escape the madness of Euro-Amerikan culture. We must build the Tribal Council and other people's institutions to serve the needs of our people that are not being met. At the same time we must wage a campaign against those who deal bogus drugs and make sure that we always provide accurate and reliable drug information and education to our people at all times. LIFE TO THE LIFE CULTURE. DEATH TO THE DEATH CULTURE. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

-Mike Minnich, Tribal Council Drugs Committee

"QUAALUDE IS ONLY THE NEWEST DRUG USED BY THE AMERIKAN CONTROL ADDICTS IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE ENERGY AND LIFE OF OUR NEWLY EMERGING RAINBOW CULTURE!"