Pages: B7 Dateline: Vancouver
Publication date: Mar 6, 1992
Copyright: (Copyright The Edmonton Journal)
Author: Ross, Bob
"This is just so amazing," says 23-year-old Carol as she stands wide-eyed on Robson Street with four of her friends.
The bright lights and bustling Friday night crowd have brought Carol and her pals - who have asked that their real names not be used - to an awestruck standstill. They giggle between themselves and 23-year-old Michael performs an impromptu pirouette.
No, they're not upcountry hicks experiencing big-city life for the first time. Rather, they're among a new generation of youth that's turning on to a mind-blowing blast from the past: LSD, the defining drug of the psychedelic 60s.
"I'd give it two thumbs up," says Carol. "It's a great escape from boredom."
Another tripper, 19-year-old Nora, says "acid is the best bang for your buck because it's only $5 for an eight-hour trip . . . plus you really don't want to eat or drink, so it ends up being a really cheap high."
It's hard to get a handle on just how widespread LSD use is today, but police, health and education officials generally acknowledge there's a resurgence.
"We know there's more of it out there than there was a few years ago, but we don't see a lot," says Det. Frank Dixon of the Vancouver police drug squad.
The colorless, tasteless, odorless drug is mostly sold in drug-permeated blotter paper that's cut up into centimetre-square "hits."
It's believed most of it comes from underground U.S. labs and is shipped here by mail, where it's virtually undetectable.
A recent U.S. study showed one of every 12 high school seniors admitted to trying LSD and 41 per cent believe the drug is easy to get.
Some people say acid never really went away. "It's like the Disney films, every seven years they re-release them so a new generation gets exposed to them," California pharmacologist Dr. Ron Siegel said in a recent Newsweek interview.
Carol and her buddies, who've mostly been out of high school for four or five years, say they've been turning on for a couple of years now.
"I went to high school in Langley (B.C.) through the 1980s and I never encountered it," says Michael. "But my younger brother says there's lots of it around now."
Another friend, 22-year-old David, says he was taking the bus from suburban Richmond to Vancouver recently when he overheard "two Grade 9 students discussing how much money they could make by buying 100 hits of LSD and selling them to their friends."
Favored haunts for the twentysomething "heads" are the downtown dance clubs, particularly ones that play ear-numbing computer-based "techno" music.
They call it going to a "rave" when they attend one of these late-night dance sessions, where the preferred designer drug is called ecstasy, a euphoria-inducing drug that runs $35-40 a hit.
"X is pretty expensive for most of us," says Carol. "We call acid the poor man's ecstasy."
A Youth and Family Addiction Services official in Vancouver, says "there's lots of acid in schools these days . . . in conversation with counsellors, even with my own two teenagers, I'm constantly hearing about it."
"It seems to be back," says Bob Overgaard, assistant-superintendant of schools in West Vancouver.
What most concerns Overgaard is the "increased incidents involving LSD among younger kids, 13 and 14 years old . . . the age of first use is lower and that's very troubling."
Rob Axsen, director of drug-and-alcohol clinics in North Burnaby and Mount Pleasant, says "we're taking a ton of LSD referrals, particularly Grade 8 girls."
Axsen thinks the girls "are targeted by Grade 9 and 10 boys hoping to get them high so they can make sexual advances."
"Two years ago there was more cocaine happening in the schools, but that seems to have disappeared and been replaced by LSD," he says. "But alcohol is still the drug of choice, followed by marijuana and then LSD."
There's no question that pure LSD chemically alters the brain, often inducing hallucinations, but experts have debated for years about the long-term effects.
The big concern, however, seems to be poisonous chemicals like strychnine and PCP (angel dust) which are often sold as LSD.
"That's where the real danger lies," says Axsen. "We get a lot of sick kids coming to us."
Axsen says he avoids moralizing when he's presenting drug education programs in schools.
"We ask them, 'why do you do it?' and they say, 'because it's fun.' We don't argue with that . . . we just show them they don't know what they're buying and the risks they're taking where they can inflict permanent damage."
"You really have to know what you're buying," says Carol. "I've done a lot of bad acid that probably wasn't acid at all . . . You've got to be really careful."
The bright lights and bustling Friday night crowd have brought Carol and her pals - who have asked that their real names not be used - to an awestruck standstill. They giggle between themselves and 23-year-old Michael performs an impromptu pirouette.
No, they're not upcountry hicks experiencing big-city life for the first time. Rather, they're among a new generation of youth that's turning on to a mind-blowing blast from the past: LSD, the defining drug of the psychedelic 60s.
"I'd give it two thumbs up," says Carol. "It's a great escape from boredom."
Another tripper, 19-year-old Nora, says "acid is the best bang for your buck because it's only $5 for an eight-hour trip . . . plus you really don't want to eat or drink, so it ends up being a really cheap high."
It's hard to get a handle on just how widespread LSD use is today, but police, health and education officials generally acknowledge there's a resurgence.
"We know there's more of it out there than there was a few years ago, but we don't see a lot," says Det. Frank Dixon of the Vancouver police drug squad.
The colorless, tasteless, odorless drug is mostly sold in drug-permeated blotter paper that's cut up into centimetre-square "hits."
It's believed most of it comes from underground U.S. labs and is shipped here by mail, where it's virtually undetectable.
A recent U.S. study showed one of every 12 high school seniors admitted to trying LSD and 41 per cent believe the drug is easy to get.
Some people say acid never really went away. "It's like the Disney films, every seven years they re-release them so a new generation gets exposed to them," California pharmacologist Dr. Ron Siegel said in a recent Newsweek interview.
Carol and her buddies, who've mostly been out of high school for four or five years, say they've been turning on for a couple of years now.
"I went to high school in Langley (B.C.) through the 1980s and I never encountered it," says Michael. "But my younger brother says there's lots of it around now."
Another friend, 22-year-old David, says he was taking the bus from suburban Richmond to Vancouver recently when he overheard "two Grade 9 students discussing how much money they could make by buying 100 hits of LSD and selling them to their friends."
Favored haunts for the twentysomething "heads" are the downtown dance clubs, particularly ones that play ear-numbing computer-based "techno" music.
They call it going to a "rave" when they attend one of these late-night dance sessions, where the preferred designer drug is called ecstasy, a euphoria-inducing drug that runs $35-40 a hit.
"X is pretty expensive for most of us," says Carol. "We call acid the poor man's ecstasy."
A Youth and Family Addiction Services official in Vancouver, says "there's lots of acid in schools these days . . . in conversation with counsellors, even with my own two teenagers, I'm constantly hearing about it."
"It seems to be back," says Bob Overgaard, assistant-superintendant of schools in West Vancouver.
What most concerns Overgaard is the "increased incidents involving LSD among younger kids, 13 and 14 years old . . . the age of first use is lower and that's very troubling."
Rob Axsen, director of drug-and-alcohol clinics in North Burnaby and Mount Pleasant, says "we're taking a ton of LSD referrals, particularly Grade 8 girls."
Axsen thinks the girls "are targeted by Grade 9 and 10 boys hoping to get them high so they can make sexual advances."
"Two years ago there was more cocaine happening in the schools, but that seems to have disappeared and been replaced by LSD," he says. "But alcohol is still the drug of choice, followed by marijuana and then LSD."
There's no question that pure LSD chemically alters the brain, often inducing hallucinations, but experts have debated for years about the long-term effects.
The big concern, however, seems to be poisonous chemicals like strychnine and PCP (angel dust) which are often sold as LSD.
"That's where the real danger lies," says Axsen. "We get a lot of sick kids coming to us."
Axsen says he avoids moralizing when he's presenting drug education programs in schools.
"We ask them, 'why do you do it?' and they say, 'because it's fun.' We don't argue with that . . . we just show them they don't know what they're buying and the risks they're taking where they can inflict permanent damage."
"You really have to know what you're buying," says Carol. "I've done a lot of bad acid that probably wasn't acid at all . . . You've got to be really careful."
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