Potentialities in the Control of Behaviour 
and a number of other monoamine oxidase inhibitors, together 
with some anti-depressants of other chemical types. These 
agents may produce euphoria, increase verbal productivity, 
speed reaction times and otherwise act as stimulants, but their 
principal value is in combating severe depressions of mental 
patients. The tranquillizers are a third group extensively em- 
ployed in the treatment of disturbed mental patients, including 
schizophrenics. These drugs include chlorpromazine and a 
variety of other phenothiazine derivatives, as well as reserpine 
and a few related Rauwolfia alkaloids. A fourth category con- 
sists of substances that act as mild tranquillizers and sedatives. 
One of these, meprobamate, is sold under a number of trade 
names of which Miltown is perhaps the best known, and another 
is methaminodiazepoxide (Librium). These drugs may relieve 
neurotic anxiety without producing the sedative effects of bar- 
biturates and bromides. 
A fifth group of psychoactive drugs produce transient psy- 
chotic states. Their primary value is for research purposes in 
producing model psychoses in normal persons. Some effects of 
some of this group have been known for a long time. In crude 
form, as they occur in native plants, they have been used to 
produce mystical states during primitive religious rites. They 
include mescaline, psilocybin, the powerful synthetic psycho- 
togen LSD-25 (lysergic acid diethylamide) and other synthetic 
products. 
All these drugs except those of the fifth group primarily affect 
mood. None of them acts upon the information content of the 
brain. The tranquillizers and psychic energizers are primarily 
responsible for the large increase in discharge rates of mental 
patients from hospitals in recent years. 
The promiscuous use of the milder tranquillizers has given 
cause for alarm. These substances can inhibit initiative, vigour 
and drive, and may have deleterious side effects. They consti- 
tute the largest item of sale in American drug stores today. 
Barbiturate sleeping pills, bootlegged from druggists, are being 
used as a substitute for alcohol by some juvenile groups. A 
drink called a ‘goof ball’’ is made from sleeping pills dissolved 
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