Dr. Seevers Compares Dangers Of 'Speed' To Heroin

"The amphetamines, a class prescription drugs which include diet pills and the so-called pep pills, "are as dangerous from a social point of view" as illegal narcotics such as heroin, according to Dr. Maurice H. Seevers, professor and recently retired chairman of the University's pharmacology department. Dr. Seevers, an international authority on drugs and drug abuse and a member of President Nixon's Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, spoke yesterday at a luncheon program of the.Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce. He was introduced by Chamber President William Bott. Noting that people have been led to believe that heroin is the biggest drug problem in the country, he said that in some ways the amphetamines (methadine, dexadrine, dexamyl, etc.) are a bigger problem because so many more people of all ages and in all segments of society use them. "Heroin has the reputation of causing crime in its own right, but this is not true. Heroin is a depressant (unlike amphetamines which are stimulants) and the heroin user is a criminal because of our laws" which make it illegal, forcing up the price and causing the addict to commit crimes of violence to support his habit. Amphetamine addicts, known as "speed freaks," however, become psychotic and often commit crimes of violence because of damage to their brains after long addiction, the U-M drug expert said. "This game is a dead end," he said, calling the "speed freak" an ultimate game player. The person who starts taking this type of drug on a regular basis builds up tolerance and switches from pills to injection to get a rush" or lift, he explained. "Everybody who follows this line long enough is going to develop psychosis." Young people say "speed kills, and that is no exaggeration." The addict has hallucinations, hears voices of people who are not there, thinks telephone poles are something else, and frequently thinks bugs are crawling under his skin, he said. ''He gets an emotional burst" and may run out into the street in front of a car, or perhaps kill someone if a gun or other weapon is handy. "These individuals don't live very long." Dr. Seevers said he wasn't attempting to play down the heroin problem because "heroin addicts are tearing down our cities" to support their habit which may cost $50 to $100 per day, but only wanted to point out that the number of heroin users are small in comparison and that the problem has been much more publicized. Amphetamines have only two medical uses which can't be challenged. These are for treatment of narcolepsy, a condition marked by an uncontrollable desire for sleep at frequent intervals, and for hyperkinesis, an overactive condition in children. Prescription of amphetamines "should be left to the pediatrician and the psychiatrist," because of the special skills needed in diagnosing these two conditions, he said. Dr. Seevers said the first good documentation of the extent of amphetamine use comes from a recent survey of the New York State Narcotics Control Commission which revealed that in the state alone some 2,600,000 people have used these drugs at least once, and 369,000 I have continued their use. This I compares with an estimated I 500,000 heroin users in the tire United States. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that about 8 billion amphetamine pills are manufactured in the U. S. each year, or 40 pills for each man, woman and child in the country, he said. In Japan large amounts of amphetamines were dumped on the market following the war and an epidemic resulted in which there were up to "2,000,000 habitual users, with 55,000 arrests a year for crimes resulting from use of these drugs. The Japanese government enacted laws, set up hospitals and carried on an educational campaign and "in three years the epidemic was wiped out. It is the first time a drug epidemic was controlled," he "We haven't reached the stage in the United States where we have completely banned them (amphetamines) for general physician use, but I expect we will reach this point," Dr. Seevers said. As for the other drugs, he said "cocaine is one of the nastiest drugs in the business and marijuana is one of the least. The use of marijuana is no longer limited to teenagers and has become an affection of many professionals. "Marijuana is not that good a drug and almost all youngsters who now use the drug drink wine with it so they will now become alcoholics like their parents." He said "the penalties for marijuana have been ridiculous." In a following emphasized there are two causes of crime from drug abuse, either "the laws you make are so strict" the addict has to steal to support his habit (as in heroin), or the effect of the drug on the brain of the individual may cause him to commit crimes of violence" as in amphetamines. "This is the problem in San Francisco which is known as the 'speed' capital of the world." "There is no proven direct drug relationship of going from one drug to another. It is just that the addict is looking for another drug which will give him a bigger lift." "We will always have drug abuse and the best we can do is to reduce it to a load we can live with," Dr. Seevers said.