And not just mother, but father and daughter and junior (and nowadays, Spot and Kitty too!) and that nice boy who used to cut the grass ... Yessir, it seems like yesterday's scourges of heroin and grass and LSD have given way to THE MENACE OF PEP PILLS!
Pep pills, goofballs, yellow jackets, fuzzie wuzzies, Strangeloves (!) and Texas Turnarounds ... the nicknames are endless, but Warren Smith and Brad Steiger are on hand to guide us through the dangerous world of amphetamines, barbiturates, tranquilizers, and antihistamines - the classes that make up the "pep pills" as our authors summarize.
And yes, that's Steiger writing alongside Smith; this is such an early collab between our boys that Brad is still writing under his birth name of Eugene Olson.
One part sober appraisal, one part drug scare spook show, you could say that this work will leave you cross faded, as dry recitations of arrests, pill counts, and legislative gristle slide into Smith and Steiger's patented style of goofy dramatic reenactment - "Then this Puerto Rican cat came around and tried to push us some Tuinals. They're blue and red and really light you up. The fellows call 'em Christmas trees ... We told him to flake off!"
Smith even goes undercover at one point, posing as a pep pill addict to discover just how easy it is to get your fix, and to trace the big drug pushers' networks. You won't be surprised that it is just that easy, and to their credit Smith and Steiger do a decent job illustrating how drug use can be normalized, even encouraged, in everyday "straight" life. A housewife getting through her day, her husband at the office, kids looking to quell an uncertainty inside them (stereotyped as "looking for kicks"), truckers and other professionals who should really know better but need to make it through one more night, one more haul ...
And just who is a pusher, anyways? Not just the tough in the leather jacket or the sleazy voyeur at the bar, but a helpful trucker offering some "co-pilots" to his fellow long hauler, or a housewife offering a pick me up to her neighbor! Even your family doctor writing a perfectly legal prescription to deal with burnout or anxiety can be part of the problem. Yes, it seems we're all complicit in this societal sickness, which puts Smith and Steiger's little volume one up on so many drug scares and fear campaigns even to this day.
Chapter nine deals with the government response to this mess, with quotes from the FDA and various congress critters including Senator Thomas Dodd.
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| Senator Thomas Dodd (1907-1971) |
Smith and Steiger gives us a bibliography too, something they'd both ditch in later years as they moved away from sociology and on to flying saucers and super creeps.
That MKUltra mind bender Dr. Louis Jolyon West lends some anodyne quotes about post-war neurosis and the creeping fear of atomic armageddon ... a fear often cultivated by West and his comrades, but that's neither here nor there! Drs. Peter A. Martin of Detroit and Thomas F. Green of Syracuse University are also on hand to explicate the relationship between existential dread and drug seeking.
Maybe it was this dread that led to Smith and Steiger becoming paranormal pushers, shoveling out endless candy colored volumes to the thrill seekers in need of a fix, looking for something juicier than congressional minutes and legislative proposals, something more enlightening that grubby drug killings and juvenile delinquency?
Who can say? Why do any of us do anything, if not for a momentary taste of being? Please pass it on though, and trade your books back to Spratt's:
The Menace of Pep Pills is available to read and download at archive dot org.
Merit Books, 1965
