I'm gruesomely old, thus I remember way back in the 1960s when a story that had shot like a stomach virus through a series of allegedly reputable newspapers finally hit the cover of one of the national magazines--I don't remember whether it was Time or Life or Look, but it was a perfectly terrifying cautionary tale about college kids who had taken LSD and had, while tripping, stared directly into the sun until their retinas burned up and they went blind.
The story would have been more effective journalistically (as opposed to sensationally) if it had actually been true, but who needs fact-checking when you can launch a national moral panic by not checking facts? The downside: it was not only easily (and rapidly) debunked, but, being a particularly silly lie, became a kind of ironic counter-culture advertisement FOR dropping acid.
Another geezer responding. I remember my seventh-grade science textbook (1966) stating that marijuana was so powerful it had to be cut with tobacco. At that moment, I learned never to trust grownups' opinions on developments in sex, drugs, apparel, or music.
I am a high school teacher (24 years) and the anti-drug speakers who come in to present almost invariably present BS scare tactic examples that are nearly impossible to believe or prove. If 2 kids tripping on acid by the airport held hands and walked into spinning propellors, you'd think we might have heard about that in the news at some point.
I'm gruesomely old, thus I remember way back in the 1960s when a story that had shot like a stomach virus through a series of allegedly reputable newspapers finally hit the cover of one of the national magazines--I don't remember whether it was Time or Life or Look, but it was a perfectly terrifying cautionary tale about college kids who had taken LSD and had, while tripping, stared directly into the sun until their retinas burned up and they went blind.
The story would have been more effective journalistically (as opposed to sensationally) if it had actually been true, but who needs fact-checking when you can launch a national moral panic by not checking facts? The downside: it was not only easily (and rapidly) debunked, but, being a particularly silly lie, became a kind of ironic counter-culture advertisement FOR dropping acid.
Another geezer responding. I remember my seventh-grade science textbook (1966) stating that marijuana was so powerful it had to be cut with tobacco. At that moment, I learned never to trust grownups' opinions on developments in sex, drugs, apparel, or music.
I am a high school teacher (24 years) and the anti-drug speakers who come in to present almost invariably present BS scare tactic examples that are nearly impossible to believe or prove. If 2 kids tripping on acid by the airport held hands and walked into spinning propellors, you'd think we might have heard about that in the news at some point.