The media says heroin is making a comeback.\u00a0 In front of me on my computer screen is yet another article about it.<\/p>\n
I think back to Tucson in the sixties. Palo Verde High School had what we teachers called a heroin ring.<\/p>\n
Timothy Leary was out in California telling our students the wonders of LSD.\u00a0 He wanted them to \u201cturn on, tune in, and drop out.\u201d\u00a0 Most of our high school students had gotten scared when a University of Arizona student took an LSD “trip”\u00a0and imagined himself Jesus Christ.\u00a0 He could do anything.\u00a0 He walked down the center stripe of the freeway to Phoenix.\u00a0 He could stop the traffic.\u00a0 The traffic didn\u2019t stop.\u00a0 The high school students went back to other drugs.\u00a0 They thought heroin was safer.<\/p>\n
I think back to lives wasted and changed forever.\u00a0 Several times after a student had been absent for several days, someone would report their decision to drop out and go to Haight-Asbury.<\/p>\n
One year the school did a magnificent production of the musical Showboat.\u00a0 The community turned out and the praise for the talented cast was high.\u00a0 The young man who had the lead had an outstanding voice and everyone thought he had a bright future.\u00a0 They said he would go far.\u00a0 He chose heroin instead of going far.<\/p>\n
A girl dropped out and moved in with her boyfriend in a drug house close to the university.\u00a0 Her frantic parents plead with her to come home.\u00a0 She told friends that she was enjoying marijuana and LSD.\u00a0 Her father took some friends for support, removed her from the house and took her back to their home at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.\u00a0 The angry boyfriend was determined to get her back.\u00a0 He and some friends somehow gained entrance to the base.\u00a0 He went to the door\u00a0of her home\u00a0and demanded\u00a0she come out.\u00a0 His friends waited in the car.\u00a0 The father shot the boy several times with a pistol.\u00a0 He then ran into the yard and started firing at the car killing the driver.\u00a0 He went back into the house and fired more shots into the body of the boyfriend.\u00a0 It was a horrific scene.<\/p>\n
The next\u00a0week\u00a0my students were sullen and accusingly said, \u201cThis is how your generation solves problems.\u00a0 They just kill someone.\u201d\u00a0 The friends of the girl reported that she was angry and distraught.\u00a0 Her father had accidently wounded himself in the fray and was in the base hospital.\u00a0 She refused to see him.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later I was talking to some students before class.\u00a0 Some friends of the girl had been to see her.\u00a0 She and her Dad had talked and she was now blaming herself for what had happened.\u00a0 One said, \u201cShe thinks that her Dad loves her so much that he just went crazy at the thought of her being on drugs.\u201d\u00a0 They were wondering if she might be right.<\/p>\n
Heroin.\u00a0 Ugly word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The media says heroin is making a comeback. In front of me on my computer screen is yet another article about it. I think back to Tucson in the sixties. Palo Verde High School had what we teachers called a heroin ring. Timothy Leary was out in California telling our students the wonders of LSD. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1955-to-1972"],"yoast_head":"\n