Article September 1, 2013

Drug counteroffensive

Richard J. Cattani

Originally published in the September 18, 1970 issue of The Christian Science Monitor 

The drug scene, as one might have expected, is generating a counteroffensive, staged by antidrug workers.

Boston alone has 15 "hotlines" on which users can call for help. It has drop-in centers, and both city-backed and grass-roots storefront rehabilitation projects. Even a for-proﬁt company, based in Cambridge across the Charles River from Boston, is entering the antidrug effort. It is putting out an arsenal of slides and cassettes and leaﬂets purporting to give the straight word about drug seduction and avoidance.

People in the antidrug movement range from former users to smart young social workers to Harvard Business School graduates. Almost all are young, as they almost have to be to know the vernacular, let alone the thinking, of the drug generation. But more even than who they are, it is their antidrug pitch that is enlightening.

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