HUDSON HOAGLAND 
in Coca Cola, and barbiturate addiction has become a serious 
problem among some teen-agers. 
At present there seems to be little likelihood of the deliberate 
use of any of the known psychoactive drugs for the control of 
the behaviour of normal people. Even in the hands ofa dictator, 
it is hard to see how any of these compounds could be used 
effectively to manipulate the actions of a population towards 
directed ends. Although these drugs may relieve depression 
and reduce anxiety in neurotic and psychotic patients, they can 
only disturb normal persons and make them miserable. Ephe- 
drine and its derivatives may briefly spur a fatigued individual 
to greater output of activity but the subsequent hangover can 
negate such transient benefit. The functions of normal healthy 
organs, including the brain, have not so far been improved 
significantly by the use of drugs. This is true of the use of drugs 
in athletic contests and other competitive events. Although some 
pharmacological agents, including alcohol, may make a person 
believe he is able to perform tasks more effectively, tests indicate 
that this is not so. For further discussion of these and related 
matters the reader is referred to essays by J. O. Cole and other 
authors in Control of the Mind®, 
There are historical examples of the use of drugs to control 
populations. Alcohol was used deliberately by some of our 
American forebears to debilitate and destroy the will to resist 
of some Indian tribes, and oriental despots have promoted the 
use of opium by subject populations for similar purposes. The 
consumption of tobacco and alcoholic beverages is promoted by 
commercial interests for their own profit—a control, in general, 
approved by the public. But people tend to resent the use of 
chemical agents when urged upon them for their own good. 
Irrational opposition to vaccination in the past and to the 
fluoridation of water supplies today are cases in point. Despite 
the magnitude of the population problem, many most in need 
of birth control refuse the use of oral contraceptives even in the 
absence of religious taboos. 
It has been popularly believed that drugs have been employed 
extensively in brain-washing procedures in Communist- 
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