Letters: Oct. 10, 1969

Drug Debate

Sir: I commend you on the fine article on pop drugs [Sept. 26]. It was most poignant and struck close to home. I was a grasshopper, but luckily enough I stopped a couple of months ago. I have heard a lot about how you can't get hooked just blowing grass. I've got too many friends disproving that theory. We all started on grass, but they are now dropping acid, popping speed and sniffing glue. Getting high is a great feeling, but it is a greater feeling being free and seeing someone else, and not yourself, ruin his life.

DAWN WELLS Washington, D.C.

Sir: Could you please put me in touch with Dr. Lindesmith of your article on pop drugs? You see, I've been in college a couple of years now, and I haven't yet developed an interest in marijuana. So I guess I've got a problem. I'd appreciate whatever you could do but, for Christ's sake, don't tell my old man! He's along in years, and that could spell the end.

STEVE ORTON Altadena, Calif.

Sir: That's a description of what it is like to be "under the influence" of drugs? Your teen-ager and adult are only describing what it is like to be acutely mentally ill—ask any schizophrenic.

(MRS.) ELIZABETH C. LANDWEHR Long Beach, Calif.

Sir: Your cover article is a tribute to modern interpretive reporting. The problem of drug abuse will not be solved until more people grasp the complex issues and address the problem with understanding based on scientific and social fact. When the mass media do a superior job of reporting these issues and facts, we are certainly on the road to solution. STANLEY F. YOLLES, M. D. Director National Institute of

Mental Health Chevy Chase, Md.

Abolishing the College

Sir: I doubt that President Nixon said that he will sign the proposed constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College "if it reaches his desk" [Sept. 26]. Upon approval by two-thirds of each house of Congress, constitutional amendments are not sent to the President but are submitted directly to the legislatures of the several states.

STEVEN L. STERN Los Angeles

Taking On Teddy

Sir: How can Ted Kennedy have the gall to attack the Administration's Viet Nam war policy as "an exercise in politics and improvisation" [Sept. 26] when his recent famous TV speech was exactly that?

MARION BEADLE Hana, Maui, Hawaii

Sir: Ted Kennedy's overrighteous indignation at President Nixon's handling of the inherited Viet Nam war is short of ludicrous. How unfortunate that Teddy was so silent when his brother John ordered the first American combat troops of this war into action and is now so vitriolic against the President's honest attempts to reduce these forces. What irony that Teddy also insists that we now toss out the Thieu regime when it was, once again, his own brother who was directly responsible for the fall of Diem, leading to the rise of Thieu.

How tragic, too, Kennedy's professed concern with the loss of lives in Viet Nam when he was so negligent about saying the one young life over which he had direct control at Chappaquiddick.

(MRS.) G. M. GRACE Arlington, Va.

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