Drugs, the Self and Society

The student, like all men, is a creature who seeks mood changes. Our society and our colleges sanction and encourage the use of many methods for changing mood, including the use of many legal drugs. The student, like many men, also seeks from time to time more profound changes in his state of consciousness. Our society and its colleges are ineffective in preventing and treating problems which arise from abuse of drugs. We seem to be overly vulnerable to the abuse-potential of self-altering drugs. This vulnerability is based, in part, on individual ignorance, prejudice, and emotionalism and on various social, economic, and political pressures and conflicts. Our society and its colleges will continue to be particularly primitive and inept in trying to handle problems related to substances which produce profound changes in the self. (Author/CJ)