Deans: Educate Yoursell About Downers

T0 the Editors:

. Due to the emergence onuaaludes
(and other methaqualones) as an
abused drug on many campuses(and
the occurrence of several problems
dealing with its misuse atorinnell),
we felt that some information was
necessary for the edification of the
student body and faculty. As such,
the below excerpts are from the
May, 1973 STASH Capsule, ”Met—
haqualine," published by the Student
Association for the Study of Hallu-

.rinogens, lhc., an informational or—
ganization concered with the honest
dissemination of drug information
on college campuses. Please note
that we are concerned with the pos»
sible abuse of the drug through ei-
ther misinformation or non-infor-
mation.

Each R.A., 3a., H.P., and House
Coordinator has a copy of this ar-
title in its entirety tor your per-
usal. If you have any questions re—

.garding methaquaiones (or any other
drug) please feel tree to contact
and RA. or member of the Dean
of Student Affairs Office.

Dean of Student Affairs Office,

Mcthaqualone, a non»barbiturate
sedative hypnotic, was introduced
by Guiunl in the 1950’s in India.
It has been used clinically for the
past ten years, mainly in Europe,
as a sleeping aid and a daytime
sedative. In the United Smtes, me-
thlqualone is available as Quaalude

.(Rorer), Sopor (Arnar—Slone), or
its hydrochloride Parest (Parke-
Dlvis), Optimll (Wallace) and Som—
natac (Smith, Miller and Patch),

Coma has been known to occur
tnllnwing 2.4 grams (gm.) of ouaa-
luder Eight to twenty grams have
produced severe toxicity and dea-
th. Overdoses of methadunlone are
less often marked by cardiac and
respiratory depression as over-
doses of oral barbiturates. Metha-
oualone can produce a comatose st-

.ate without intertering much with
pain response, pulse or respira-
tion Overdose can result in de-
lirium, restlessness, hypertnnin,
and muscle spasms leading to con-
vulsions. Most fatal overdoses of
methaqualone have been due to its
combination with alcohol.
Management of a methaqualoneov-
erdose varies somewhat from a bar-
biturate overdose, Supportive ther-
apy should be given to maintain vi»
LII functions In cases of mildoven
dose, the victim should be kept un—
der close supervision to sleep on
the effects of the drugl

Reports of tolerance (increasing
resistance to the pharmacologic ef-
fects of a drug) to methaoualone
have been few. The conclusion of
the investigators was that tolerance
had developed.

Physical dependence on methaqua—
lone was reported by Madden. He
discusses four cases of dependency
on Melsedin and points out: “The
features definitely shown are a St-
rong desire to continue taking the
drug, a tendency to increase the
dose (partly due to development
of tolerance), and psychic depend~
ence on the effects of the drug."

Schnoll et II. describe three cases
where a withdrawal syndrome was
indicated, The subjects were taking
from 500 mg, to 3,000 mg. or met-
haqualone daily. When the drug was
withdrawn, insomnia, abdominal
cramps, headaches, anorexia andni—
ghtmnres were experienced. One
subject had been abusing barbitur-
ates before she began using metha-
qualooe. She experienced no with-
drawal symptoms when she switch-
ed, indicating a cross tolerance be-
tween barbiturates and methaqua-
loner Ewart and Priest found delir-
ium tremens, characteristic ofbar-
biturate withdrawal, Io be the main
effect DI withdrawal from metha-
qualone.

Adverse physiological effects to
methaqualone in humans include he-
adache, hangover, menstrual dis»
tnrbance, tongue changes, dryness
of the mouth, cracking at the ang-
les of the mouth, epistaxis, deper-
sonalization, dizziness, urticaria
and parenthesia of extremities
Ager describes "Iuding out" as
taking 300 to 450 mg. of methaou-
alone with wine, "The combination
directly produces a pleasant sense
of well-being, an increased pain th-
reshold, an impairment in proprio-
ceptive sense, which induces severe
ataxia, and a pins-and_needles pn-
resthesia of the fingers, lips, and
tongue. Rather than alarm the user,
the painless pleasant ataxia fre-
quently gives him feelings of in-
destructnblllty, which, in turn, lead
to euphoria. I have received several
reports of users in this ataxic eu—
phoric state tailing down nights
of stairs, not feeling the bruises
until the rollowing day."

ISSUES AND OPINIONS

Although methaqualone has been
clinically demonstrated as an eff-
ective hypnotic, controversy aboun-
ds as to its abuse and addiction
potentiall

Bob: Clarification 0n Crazy House

To the Editors:

Recently there have been two at-
ticles in the SkB that have had to
do with popcornballs. That is an
article by the 8&5 staff and a letter

.by Crazy House. After readlhgthese
two articles, it is evident to me
that both groups have made a mis-
take and that Crazy House has been
wronged.

on Halloween night afriend ofmine
was given L.S.D. without his know-
ledge. Dorm mates suspected Crazy
House. However, he and the other
student, who had taken the drug,
DID NOT want to accuse Crazy
House. They DID NOT go around

.spreading rumors about Crazy

House, The only contact with the
administration was with Dean Wale
ker, That was to get the students
excused from a Biology Test, Mr.
Walker being the instructor.

The only spreading of a rumor,
that is if you can call it that, was

by me. That is, I went to Scott Weil
and Nina Adams and asked them if
they could find out if Crazy House
had supplied the L.S.D. Nina later
told me, knowing the people in
Crazy House, that She did not think
it was them. I then thought the mci—
dent was closed.

But, of course, the SitB had to
publish the story, in the public in.
terest. This prompted a letter from
Crazy House. I would now like to
make a suggestion to the 58:3, If
the incident occurs again and the
newspaper decides to publish the
story, tor the public good, please
get the facts straight

in other words don’t imply that
students accused a house when they
didn’t. All you have to say is that
the Soil accuses a housell hope
that the case is now closed. Thank
you 5&3, and again, apologies to
Crazy House,

Jeffrey nob

Well: Faculty Evaluation Successful

.[o the Editors:
Now that the faculty evaluation
handbook has been distributed and
apparently fairly well received by
all circles I would like to make a
few Observations on the Value of
the booklet and the importance of
continuing its publication. A book
of this nature, statistically sound
and editorially tasteful will undou-

.)tedly augment the current acad-
emic counselling program so that
studean will be relying on more
than blind hope when they register
for courses, Just as importantly,
the contents of the book are such
that they elevate the status of stu»
dent input with regard to personal

.decision making at the College.

It is difficult for me to conceive
Ufa situation where any department
or Executive Council would attempt
to make a personnel decision which
contradicted the opinion of the re—
port in the handbook, it the report
was done judiciously. Thus the need
to strive for excellence in compil-
ing the booklet is of critical im»
portance. The burden should not
only fall upon the editor and the
staff; rather we would hope that
every student will fill out the ev—
aluation forms which will be com-
ing out in a few Weeks, I would
like to thank everyone who was
involved in making the pilot book
a success,

Scott Well

Most people who get ouaalude by
legal prescription take it for fun
rather than for sleepxlf you eat a
lot you build up a tolerance, with
heroin and other opiates both the
amount of the drug needed to get
you stoned and the amount needed
to kill you go up proportionally.
With ouaalude the fatal dosage re-
mains about the same even though
you need more and more to get you
off. Eventually the fatal dosage and
daily dosage become dangerously
close»close enough so that a couple
of good drinks could tip it over into
a coma.
John Steinbeck
Ed, note: (Not the novelist)
in recent months I have been as»
lied to see a number of cases of
anxiety and depression who in the in»
itial stages of their illness have
been prescirhed methaqualone for
insomnia. I often found it difficult
to switch men over to less power»
ful hypnotics even after the main
psychiatric illness hadbeen treated.
R. de Alarcon

MORE

Woods: Defends

To the Editors:
This letter is in response to Mr.
Ramer’s criticism. lam quite SOs
rry that my opinion of the Arab»
Israeli conﬂict offended him. In my
defense I must say that it was not
callous; in fact I thoughtlended It
on a rather lamenting and poignant
note, It was not chauviuistic as I
am not an Arab and aspouse no
nation, gender nor religion to be
greater than any other. It was not
bigoted as 1 cast aspersions only
on Americans and the American
political-economic system. As for
anu-semitism, that is the only thing
Mr. Rainer was able to accurately
assess. I am an anti-semite. lfever
I should catch an Arab in one of our
cold campus buildings I shall kill
him.

J. C. Woods
PS. I think that Mr Rainer owes
Ms, Redman an apology. You can
can Ms. Redman manythings,astar
as her feminist views go, but you
cannot call her a bigot. In fact, it
makes me wonder (and this is no
comment pro or can on Women’s
Lib) whose opinion about Women’s
Lib should be held more valid, Mr.
Ramer's (a man) or Ms. Redman's
(a woman).

Ruler: Cornell Open

To the Editors:

Your November 6 issue contained
on page five a personal perspective
article on the recent ACM student
government conference entitled,
“ACM SGA: Sex and Politics,” by-
lined Robin Recant and John Turn»
bull. Included in their retrospective
glance at the Coe College meeting
was the following: ”AS Grinnell
was the only college that held open
faculty meetings most of the other
schools considered themselves lu»
cky to be allowed to have even one
designated student attend."

This is entirely false at Cornell
College, where students are wel»
come to attend, where an average
gallery of 20-25 observes the la»
culty's weekly shennanigans, and
where both the student body presi-
dent and the student council repre
sentative for academic affairs have
speaking privileges,

Indeed. it was while turned off to
one particularly boringdebateat our
corporate faculty's November 20
meeting that I read the Recant/
Turnbull piece, which was other»
wise quite reireshing in its can»
didness concerning an event not
all as monumental as it was Cra-
cked up to be,

Allan Ruter

Editor, The Cornellian
Cornell College
Mount Vernon, IA 52314

THE GRINNELL SCARLET AND BLACK NOVEMBFD 30, l973 PAGES

gt - ~a

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Allyn Sinderbrand, student cratts workshop supervisor, pours waxto make
candles to sell at the craris sale Friday and Saturday, November 30 and
December 1, in Gardiner Lounger of Main Hall. Objects for sale include
pottery, woven material, candles, silk-screen art, and other items, ac-

cording to Nina Adams, co-ordinator of the craft workshops.

 

Silverman:Leaving Grinnel I

To the Editors:

The Photography Workshop was in—
itiated to fullfill the needs of crea-
tive photographers at Grinnell. Sp—
eciﬁcally, the rormation ofthework-
Shop insured the preservation ofthe
Steiner darkroom, and offered
photographers on campus an opp—
ortunity to discuss their pictures
with each other. Unfortunately, the
limited darkroom space forced the
restriction of membership to twenty
men and women,

Originally, over forty people, in»
cluding some faculty, expressed an
interest in the workshop. Many of
them were beginners who had never
used a darkroom, and some didn’t
own cameras. Considering the value
of the college’s investment in the da»
rkroom equipment, the adminis-
tratlon requested that the workshop
be open only for experienced photo-
graphers. So all the beginners had
to be denied the opportunity tolearh,

This was especially bad because
some people had been misled by
admissions interviewers into belie»
Vil'lg that there was not only simple
darkroom space atcrinnell, but also
instruction in photography.

ignoring these lies, whyis Grinnell
College not cultivating the talent
of its students? How can those Stud»
ents who find in photography, not
only a high degree of personal sat—

isfaction, but also the rewards of
following a pursuit that has a trad»
ition of eloquence, perfection, hon-
esty, integrity, humanity, and hard
work, be complacent with the lack
of support given to photography
here?
i initiated the workshop because
i could no longer be complacent.
One of the reasons I am leaving
Grinnell is that i no longer want
to channel energy that needs to
be directed at my studies towards
an endeavor for which the school
should take responsibility. in other
words, I came to Grinnell to get
instruction, not to give it. i am
glad that my endeavors have offered
some students here an opportunity
to work creatively in a medium
that I admire and love, and would
like to express thanks to Mr. Ham»
ilton, Mr. Trotter, and especially
Mr. Pomerenk, whose assistancein
preparing financial arrangements,
and repairing, and furnishing the
Steiner darkroom was invaluable.
The number of men and women in»
terested in photography is astrono»
mical. Grinnell College is allowing
creative talent to be ignored. Until
something is done, people like me,
will continue to look for other in»
stitutions in which to educate them»
selves

Sincerely,

Jonathan Silverman

Ramer: Unfair Coverage

To the Editors:

Once again the son has proven
to be the repository of the most
callous, bigoted, and objectionable
sentiments on campus. I'm refer-
ing to the column entitled “Yis-
roel" and to the article on the
Midwest Feminist Conference.

in his column, Woods made a
rather simplistic analysis or the
oil crisis and us support for Is-
rael. He added nothing to an un»
derstanding or the situation and his
callous predictions on the fate of
the Israeli nation border on the an-
ti»semitic. The Middle East is a
very difficult situation on which we
should all inform ourselves in or»
der to aid in pushing our govern»
ment towards a more humane and
realistic position. Such caliousness
as displayed in “Yisroel” nniy ob:
scures the issue and paves the way
for emotional chauvinism toreplace
a clear analysis or the issue,

But the shortcomings of this col-
umn pale beside the outrageous
bigotry and slander of the article
on the womens conference. A cal,

culated insult could hardly be more
offensive In the past, Grinnell stu-
dents have demonstrated when re-
presentatives of chauvinist and rea-
ctionary publications appeared on
campus. Today the Establishment
need not bother to send its agents
to Grinnell, The SltB stands ready
to fulfill the role

Redmans article perpetuated the
worst myths about the feminist mo»
vement, She painted the Grmnell
Womens Group to be something out
of an Al Capp comic strip, But
those of us who are acquainted with
people involved in the local wo-
mens movement know them as warm
and reasonable human beings who
are struggling to free themselves
from some of society’s prejudices
“Liberation” means learning tobe»
come more human, Perhaps those
who believe that it means taking of!
their make up should take time to
get to know Grinnell’s feminists who
are honestly striving to create a
better society,

Rob Rainer

 

